This post summarizes some metadata file formats structures.
MIME is a standard to add file type information as metadata to a file.
Multimedia File Metadata Formats
Metadata formats:
- EXIF
- IPTC
- XMP
The most modern general-purpose embedded metadata format is XMP.
EXIF
Exchangeable Image File Format (Exif) is the metadata format used internally by ExifTools application.
Used for camera data.
You can read more about ExifTool on this post.
IPTC
Information Interchange Model (IIM).
IPTC IIM is the legacy press/photo metadata. It has been largely superseded by IPTC4XMP.
XMP
Extended Metadata Platform (XMP) is published as the standard ISO 16684-1:2012.
Developed originally by Adobe, then released as an standard.
A sidecar XMP is a file that goes with another files and includes metadata for that files.
Dublin Core (DC)
Dublin Core (DC) — conceptual metadata schema, not file‑embedded
PDF Metadata
PDF Metadata (XMP-based) — a use of XMP
ID3 tags (MP3)
ID3 tags (MP3) — audio‑specific metadata
Matroska/KLV metadata
Matroska/KLV metadata — video containers
Non-file-oriented metadata format
Non-file-oriented metadata formats:
- PROV family of documents
- RDA Attribution Metadata Standard
PROV family of documents
PROV familiy of documents, including PROV-DM, PROV-O and PROV-N.
It is a W3C standard.
It is web-oriented, and not file-oriented.
PROV family of documents official website
RDA Attribution Metadata Standard
Oriented
It is PROV-based.
General-purpose Tools to work with Metadata File Structures
Some general-purpose tools to work with metadata file structures:
- ExifTool
ExifTool
ExifTool is both a command-line and Lisp library to edit file metadata.
It is compatible with all the metadata formats featured on this post.
You can read more about ExifTool on this post.