Synchronized Multimedia Activity Statement

The Synchronized Multimedia Activity designed the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL, pronounced "smile") for choreographing multimedia presentations where audio, video, text and graphics are combined in real time. SMIL is a W3C Recommendation that enables authors to specify and control the precise time a sentence is spoken and make it coincide with the display of a given image.

The Synchronized Multimedia (SYMM) Working Group completed SMIL 1.0, SMIL 2.0 and SMIL 2.1 and is currently working on a new version (SMIL 3.0) which adds the following new features through new modules:

SMIL 3.0 smilText provides a new media type for use in SMIL presentations.
SMIL 3.0 State provides a mechanism for the author to create more complex control flow than what SMIL provides through the timing and content control modules, without using a scripting language.
SMIL 3.0 DOM describes the SMIL 3.0 DOM support. SMIL is an XML-based language and conforms to the (XML) DOM Core [DOM1], [DOM2]. A language profile may include DOM support.
SMIL 3.0 External Timing defines an XML timing language that makes SMIL 3.0 element and attribute timing control available to a wide range of other XML languages. Because of its similarity with external style and positioning descriptions in the Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) language, this functionality has been termed SMIL Timesheets. It can be seen as a temporal counterpart of CSS. Whereas CSS defines the spatial layout of the document and formatting of the elements, SMIL Timesheets specify which elements are active at a certain moment and what their temporal scope is within a document.

The Timed Text Working Group is now moved to The Video on The Web Activity.

Highlights Since the Previous Advisory Committee Meeting

The SYMM Working Group published

the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL 3.0) Recommendation on 01 December 2008. The group also published a testsuite and implementation experience to provide an implementation report.
the Timesheets 1.0 standalone Working Draft now in Last Call since 10 January 2008.

Upcoming Activity Highlights

The SYMM (Synchronized Multimedia) Working Group charter was extended until 31 December 2009.
The Group is planning to focus on maintenance and deployment of SMIL Recommendations, and integration of SMIL technologies with other specifications. No significant progress is foreseen this year on SMIL Timesheets 1.0.

Summary of Activity Structure

Group	Chair	Team Contact	Charter
SYMM Working Group (participants)	Dick Bulterman, Eric Hyche	Thierry Michel	Chartered until 31 December 2010

This Activity Statement was prepared for the March 2010 W3C Advisory Committee Meeting (Members only) per section 5 of the W3C Process Document. Generated from group data.

Thierry Michel, Synchronized Multimedia Activity Lead (W3C)

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