What Is CEV?

CEV Defined: One Credential, One Issuer

CEV stands for Certified Video Engineer. It is a professional certification offered by the Society of Broadcast Engineers, Inc. (SBE), and it is aimed at working engineers whose responsibilities center on video systems and related technology. The acronym is shared by several unrelated credentials in other industries, so it is worth being precise: everything on this page concerns the SBE Certified Video Engineer examination and nothing else.

Within SBE's certification family, CEV sits beside a sibling credential for audio, the Certified Audio Engineer (CEA). SBE publishes a combined page for the two, and the exam topic areas are presented together there. That combined presentation is why you will sometimes see CEV and CEA discussed as a pair, but they are separate certifications with separate examinations. CEV is also distinct from other SBE credentials such as the CBT and CBTE broadcast technologist certifications and the CPT, which have their own scopes and requirements.

Who Issues It and How the Exam Is Delivered

SBE administers its own examinations. Rather than routing candidates through a commercial testing-center network, SBE uses approved in-person proctors, typically members of local SBE chapters, who run exam sessions at scheduled times. Where a candidate cannot reasonably attend a standard session, SBE indicates that alternative or custom-proctored arrangements are available when necessary.

One point worth clearing up: the exam forms are computer-selected, but that does not mean the exam is delivered online or with remote proctoring. Plan on a supervised, in-person sitting arranged through SBE's exam schedule. Because sessions are scheduled rather than available on demand, your timeline will be shaped by the calendar; our guide to CEV exam dates, deadlines and scheduling covers how to plan around that.

Who Can Sit for It: The Experience Rule

CEV is an experience-gated credential. The baseline requirement is five years of suitable audio/video engineering or related-technology experience. Education and licensure can substitute for part of that time:

There is an important guardrail: education and employment that overlap in time cannot be counted twice. If you worked full time while earning a degree, you cannot claim both the degree credit and the same years of work for the same period.

Application B is the document that formalizes all of this. It requires an experience history, three references (including a current or former supervisor), transcripts if education is being used in place of experience, and agreement to the SBE Canons of Ethics. Get your references lined up early, because a supervisor who needs to document your work takes time to coordinate. For a deeper walkthrough, see CEV requirements: eligibility, prerequisites and how to qualify.

What the Exam Looks Like

The mechanics are refreshingly simple:

• 50 multiple-choice questions
• Three hours to complete them
• Two points per question, for a 100-point scale
• 70% passing threshold
• No essay component
• Results are reported as pass/fail

Because results are pass/fail, you will not receive a detailed score breakdown by topic to guide a retake. That makes it more important to self-assess before test day rather than counting on diagnostic feedback afterward. Each question is worth two points, so every question matters; with 50 items, there is little room to coast on a few strong areas. To understand exactly where the line falls, read our breakdown of the CEV passing score.

SBE reviews its examination questions at least three times annually, so the question pool is maintained rather than frozen. Candidates are also prohibited from disclosing exam questions, and any scratch paper or notes made during testing must be surrendered at the end.

The Five Published Exam Topic Areas

SBE's current certification page for CEV and CEA lists the exam subject areas below. These are unweighted labels: SBE does not publish a percentage breakdown, and this article does not guess at one. They describe what the exam covers, not a study curriculum.

Open Book Does Not Mean Easy

CEV is an open-book examination. Reference books, written notes, tables, calculators, and internet access are all permitted. If you rely on the internet, you are responsible for your own connection, and a dropped connection is your problem, not the proctor's.

Candidates often misread what this means. Open book does not remove the need to know the material; it changes the kind of knowledge that pays off. Fifty questions in three hours works out to a little over three and a half minutes each. That is generous for a question you understand and punishing if you are hunting through a reference for a concept you have never seen. The people who do well treat their references as a way to confirm a number or verify a detail, not as a substitute for understanding.

SBE does list suggested reference materials for its engineering certifications, including Video Engineering (third edition) and Digital Television Fundamentals (second edition). SBE is explicit, however, that its examinations are not specifically based on this shared reference list, so treat these as useful background rather than a guaranteed map of the questions.

Fees, Retakes and Membership Mechanics

The initial application and examination fee depends on your membership status:

Membership in SBE is optional. Application B describes optional SBE membership running through March 31 of the following year, paired with the nonmember fee. Given the gap between the member and nonmember figures, it is worth comparing the cost of membership against the savings before you apply. Our CEV certification cost breakdown lays out the full picture.

If you do not pass, one retake is permitted at the next scheduled session for USD 46. Any attempts beyond that require a new application. Since the retake is cheap relative to the initial fee, a failed first attempt is recoverable, but the next-session constraint means timing matters.

For practice, SBE offers a browser-based CertPreview product at USD 45 per examination level. Its practice-question count is separate from the actual 50-question exam, and the legacy downloadable CertPreview software is no longer supported or updated. You can supplement official practice with our own CEV practice tests to build familiarity with the question style.

Staying Certified: The Five-Year Cycle

CEV certification lasts five years. To renew, you have two routes:

1. Documented professional credits: 20 credits drawn from at least four activity categories.
2. Re-examination: successfully passing the exam again before your certification expires.

Renewal applications are accepted six months before expiry, so you have a defined window to submit. The recertification application lists USD 88 for members, USD 193 for nonmembers, and USD 303 for Non-MemberPlus. Uninterrupted SBE membership throughout the certification term qualifies for a 10% discount on the member renewal fee, which is a modest incentive to keep membership continuous if you intend to renew.

The credit route rewards engineers who stay active in the field through documented professional activity across multiple categories, rather than concentrating everything in one kind of contribution. Start logging your activities early in the cycle instead of reconstructing five years of history near the deadline.

Where CEV Fits in Your Career

CEV is a credential for working video and broadcast engineers. It signals that you have met an experience threshold and demonstrated competence against an examination maintained by a professional engineering society. It is the kind of credential that tends to matter in broadcast and media technical environments, where SBE membership and certification are recognized, rather than something a generalist employer would screen for by name. Our overview of CEV-related jobs explores the roles where it comes up.

Sequencing Your Preparation

Because the exam is open book and spans five distinct areas, the most useful planning question is not "how many hours" but "in what order." Here is one way to sequence the topic areas, with the reasoning built in:

Adjust the pacing to your experience; a working engineer strong in daily operations may spend more time on theory and electronics fundamentals. For a fuller plan, see our CEV study guide, the CEV training overview, and the one-page CEV cheat sheet. When you want to test yourself under realistic conditions, take a timed set on the main practice test site.

A note on pass rates: SBE reports results as pass/fail and this article does not cite a pass-rate figure, because none is supplied in the source material. Our CEV pass rate discussion explains what can and cannot be said from the available data.

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