SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) is an XML application, created by the W3C Consortium. The most recent SMIL standard version is 2.0, and it has been released on 7 August 2001. Its main purpose was to define a language optimal for writing interactive multimedia presentations, also with support of reusing the syntax and semantics of SMIL to ther XML languages, such as XHTML.
It is a very powerful language, giving you a lot of control over the contents of the presentation. You can integrate different types of media
"As you may have gathered, the format is a bit different from what you may be accustomed to when writing an XML document. This is because you need to follow the specification used for captioning set by the World Wide Web Consortium, and the XML document prepared for use with the captioning component must follow that standard.You will notice that you can set the styling for the text, and that each caption needs to have a start and an end point. This means each caption must have a begin attribute, which determines when the caption should appear. If the
QuickTime SMIL Extensions define the following additional attributes for the <smil> element:
* autoplay: Specifies whether the resulting presentation should automatically start playback upon instantiation. Legal values are either "true" or "false," and the default is "false." Common usage is:
<smil qt:autoplay="true"/>
* next: Specifies to the player that after this presentation is finished, the presentation referenced in the attribute value should be invoked and played in the same space. Used to chain presentations together. A
SMIL (pronounced as "smile") – Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language is an XML application defined by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). SMIL 2.0 [1] has just been released as the W3C recommendation on 7th August 2001. The main design goal as stated by W3C is to define an XML-based language that allows you to write interactive multimedia presentations as well as allowing you to reuse the SMIL syntax and semantics in other XML-based languages such as XHTML. SMIL is an XML-based and vendor neutral markup language that allows you to build
What are Captions?
Captions are text versions of the spoken word. Captions allow the content of web audio and video to be accessible to those who do not have access to audio. Though captioning is primarily intended for those who cannot hear the audio, it has also been found to help those that can hear audio content and those who may not be fluent in the language in which the audio is presented.
Common web accessibility guidelines indicate that captions should be:
* Synchronized - the text content should appear at approximately the same time
Flash is everywhere these days so it is probably not a big surprise to find out that bringing Flash into QuickTime is not the only power combo in town. Indeed, RealNetworks offers its own take on the solution with RealFlash (now known by RealNetworks more formally as RealG2 with Flash)
RealFlash has actually been around for quite a while (in Internet terms). Rolled out several years ago as the result of a partnership between Macromedia and RealNetworks, RealFlash was available even before RealNetworks shipped the RealPlayer G2 with SMIL support. Now
In an earlier article, Streaming Media World featured an article about Confluent Technologies, a Canadian company that offers a SMIL authoring tool known as Fluition. This article features some explanations of how the Fluition software functions, including screenshots. There is also a Tips and Tricks section on SMIL authoring, provided by the team at Confluent Technologies.
SMIL, as more people are beginning to appreciate, can be used for a variety of applications, such as interactive video, video on demand, online training, audio, animation, and
RSS/XML