The VCDRC at SMPTE’s Metexpo 2025 Conference

Several members of the VCD research centre (Greg Bennett, Chen Chen, Dafydd Sills-Jones and Lesley Ung) attended and presented at SMPTE’s Metexpo conference in Sydney in late July (28.7-30.7.2025), along with four AUT students (Corina Huang, Ed Forest, Anuthi Karunaratne and Akane Shibata) generously supported by SMPTE and AUT’s DCT faculty.

SMPTE is a global media tech organisation made up of volunteers across the world’s media technology industries, and the gathering of the Oceania branch – a partner organisation of the VCD Research Centre – created an opportunity for the exchange of views and knowledge with industry at a time when AI both promises and threatens to transform several established orders of production and distribution.

Metexpo also gave VCD researchers a chance to present cutting-edge research about our approach to media technology at AUT to a wider, international audience. Overall, the event showed that the AUT partnership with SMPTE – through the aegis of AUT’s Virtual Creative Design research centre – has borne fruit and could be a key contributor going forward to DCT’s international industrial partnerships in this key area of media tech.