Media Entertainment Core (MEC)

• Home
• Common Metadata
• Common Ratings
• Extras and Interactivity
• Media Manifest
• Media Manifest Core
• Media Entertainment Core
• Asset Ordering and Delivery
• Media Delivery Core
• Avails
• Cross Platform Extras
• QC Vocabulary
• API
• Validator
• Tools
• Best Practices
• New Concepts
• Training

OVERVIEW

This site contains the defintion of Media Entertainment Core (MEC) Metadata

The Entertainment Merchant’s Association (EMA) and the Digital Entertainment Group (DEG), in conjuncation with MovieLabs, have defined this format for transferring metadata from Publishers to Retailers.

Full documentation is a combination of the written document and the XML Schema itself.

CURRENT VERSION

VERSION 2.25

MEC incorporates all changes in Common Metadata 2.25. MEC has itself been extended to support Compilation Objects in Core Metadata.

This version adopts the new version numbering scheme where all specifications' versions are aligned. The previous version was 2.12.          

Specification

• Media Entertainment CoreMetadata, TR-META-MEC, Version 2.24, December 4, 2025 (PDF)
• Version showing changes from v2.12 (PDF)

Schema

• Schema Location: https://www.movielabs.com/schema/mdmec/v2.25/mdmec-v2.25.xsd
• Schema Documentation (HTML). This includes Common Metadata.

A presentation summarizing the annual release can be found here (PDF) 

Release History

A full release history including change lists and deprecated versions can be found here.

SUPPORTING MATERIALS

Educational Materials

We have created videos that explain concepts. An introduction to metadata can be found here. The full class is here.

Controlled Vocabularies

• Genre: http://www.movielabs.com/md/mec/mec_primary_genre.html

VALIDATOR and Tool Suite

Information and links to the MDDF Validator are here: www.movielabs.com/md/validator.

The Tool Suite, including an online validator are at mddf.movielabs.com.

CONTACT

• Please submit questions and comments to