An acronym (pronounced SIM-tee) for the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. SMPTE, much like AES (see WFTD archive AES), IEC, and other organizations, provide a coherent place for keeping professionals (in this case television and film audio engineers) up to date with current information as well as formalizing and documenting necessary standards from time to time. It was SMPTE who devised the classical method of measuring intermodulation distortion, but one of their most noteworthy achievements is the formalization and standardization of SMPTE Time Code.