Multimedia Applications based on SMIL

Dr. Philipp Hoschka
W3C/INRIA/MIT

March 2001, Hanover

What is W3C ?

• Founded+Lead by Tim Berners-Lee, Web Inventor
• "Leading the Web to its Full Potential"
• >500 Members
• Standards
  • XML, XSLT, ...
  • HTML, XHTML
  • CSS
  • P3P
  • ...
  • SMIL

What is SMIL ?

• XML-based language to create TV-like presentations
• Describe
  • Media objects
  • Layout
  • Timing
  • Interactivity
• Design goals
  • Easy to author
  • Trade CPU power for bandwidth
  • "The HTML of multimedia presentations"
• Demo

SMIL History

• Oct '96: W3C Workshop
• March '97: First WG meeting
• June '98: SMIL 1.0 Recommendation
• Feb '99: 2nd WG started
• Sept '00: Last Call SMIL 2.0
• Jul '01: Recommendation

Synchronized Multimedia WG

1. CWI
2. Ericsson
3. IBM
4. Intel
5. Macromedia
6. Microsoft
7. NIST
8. Nokia
9. Oratrix
10. Philips
11. Panasonic
12. RealNetworks

Scenario: TV News Broadcast

Split into Components

Component Synchronization

SMIL Sequential Composition

<seq>
  <audio src="http://www.example.com/joe-audio"/>
  <audio src="http://www2.example.com/tim-audio"/>
</seq>

SMIL Parallel Composition

<par>
  <video src="../joe-video"/>
  <text src="../joe-text"/>
</par> 

Layout

<layout>

  <region id="foo" top="50" left="50 />

</layout>

...

<video region="foo" src="joe-video" />

...

• SMIL 2.0 allows nested regions

Links/Interactivity

• HTML-like links

  <a href="joe-home.html">
    <video region="foo" src="joe-video" />
  </a>
      

• HTML-like image+"video maps"

  <video region="foo" src="joe-video">
    <anchor begin="2s" end="4s" href="joe-home" />
    <anchor begin="4s" end="8s" href="station-home" />
  </video>

• SMIL 2.0 allows events, e.g. mouseclick etc.

Content Adaptation

• Different languages

  <switch>
    <audio src="foo1" system-language="en" />
    <audio src="foo2 system-language="de" />
   </switch>

• Same for different bandwidth, switch captions on/off etc.
• SMIL 2.0 allows author-defined tests (e.g. "wireless")

Other SMIL 2.0 News

• Transition effects
• Broadcaster" can send events (add insertion etc.)
• Improved Accessibility support (Audio Descriptions)
• Additional support for Mobile, TV
• Integration of SMIL functionality into SVG, XHTML
• Takeup by 3GPP, MPEG (parts)
• ...

Getting Started: SMIL Tools

• Players
  • RealPlayer
  • Quicktime (4.1 and higher)
  • Oratrix
  • X-SMIL (Open Source)
• Authoring tools
  • RealSlideShow
  • RealPresentor
  • Oratrix
  • ...
  • Notepad/emacs

More on SMIL

• http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/
• www-smil@w3.org