SMIL A guide for language teachers

This Section defines the SMIL structure module. The Structure Module provides the base elements for structuring SMIL content. These elements act as the root in the content model of all document types in the SMIL language profile family.

Once you understand SMIL, use this appendix as reference when writing SMIL files. For full information on SMIL and RealSystem, see Chapter 7. In the tables below, an asterisk (*) denotes a required attribute. Ellipses (...) designate nonessential information left out of the example.

Internet Explorer can run SMIL presentations inside HTML files.

SMIL is an easy-to-learn HTML-like language for describing audiovisual presentations.

A Ram file lists the location of your clip or SMIL file. You then link your Web page to the Ram file. When visitors click this link, their RealPlayers launch and play the clip or clips listed in the Ram file or SMIL file.

SMIL uses media element to describe content.

The RealText file allows for two basic types of text formatting: display and layout. Display tags specify when text appears or disappears, while layout tags control how the text that appears actually looks in terms of color, size, font, and so forth.

A Ram file is a text file with the extension .ram (.rpm for playback in a Web page). When a browser receives this file, it launches RealOne Player as a helper application. RealOne Player then requests the clips listed in the Ram file. RealSystem Server can launch RealOne Player without using a Ram file by automatically creating a ram file via Ramgen. In some cases, however, you may need to write a Ram file:

In the previous example, each media clip played sequentially. A SMIL file can also define a layout for your presentation. The layout specifies regions where your clips will play, and allows you to play more than one clip at a time.

Once you create RealText and SMIL documents, you can show your SMIL presentation by referencing your SMIL file in a Web document in two ways:

The SMIL 2.0 Linking Modules define the SMIL 2.0 document attributes and elements for navigational hyperlinking.

When your streaming presentation contains multiple clips —such as a slideshow and a video played together —you can use Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) to coordinate the parts. Pronounced “smile”, SMIL is a simple but powerful markup language for specifying how and when clips play.

The RealSystem ad serving feature uses SMIL to lay out clips and ads. You have the greatest flexibility when you set up your own SMIL file as described in "SMIL Files with Ad Content". However, RealServer can automatically generate a SMIL file that includes an ad when a single media clip is requested. If your site hosts a large number of RealVideo clips, for example, you can simply post the clips and have RealServer automatically generate the SMIL file and get the ad for you.

With your clips in their streaming formats, you put your presentation together with SMIL. Pronounced "smile," SMIL stands for "Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language." A SMIL file is not necessary to stream just one clip. But when you have multiple clips, SMIL's simple mark-up language specifies how and when the clips play.

The SMIL linking module defines the user-initiated hyperlink elements that can be used in a SMIL document.

SMIL is the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language, a language designed to create interactive multimedia presentations using various types of media, including audio, video, images and text. Based on XML, SMIL allows developers to synchronize and coordinate the presentation of different media files, thereby making it possible to easily and quickly create Web-based multimedia offerings.

Command tags add functionality and interactivity to a SMIL presentation. For example, you can use them to launch URLs in a browser or RealPlayer, or to issue RealPlayer commands such as Pause and Play.

The following code and examples accompany the article Layouts in SMIL that appeared on streamingmedia.com on March 30, 2001.

You can easily use the RealSystem ad serving feature to deliver rich media ads in formats such as RealFlash and RealVideo. You simply modify your ad server to deliver a SMIL-based URL to a rich media ad clip hosted on a RealServer. The server-side #include tag in the target HTML page then expands to include the SMIL mark-up. RealServer's ad insertion plug-in parses the SMIL mark-up, extracting the rich media URL and placing it in the SMIL file that was originally requested.