W3C Issues SMIL as a Proposed Recommendation

W3C Issues SMIL as a Proposed Recommendation 

Voting Now Underway by W3C Member Organizations on 
the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language Specification 

For immediate release 

(also available in Japanese) 
  Contact America --
                      Ian Jacobs <ij@w3.org>
                      +1.212.684.1814 

                      Kathryn Esplin <kesplin@w3.org>  
                      +1.617.258.0604
  Contact Europe --
                      Ned Mitchell <ned@ala.com>
                      +33 1 43 22 79 56  

                      Andrew Lloyd <allo@ala.com>
                      +44 127 367 5100
  Contact Asia --
                      Yumiko Matsubara <matsubara@w3.org>
                      +81.466.47.5111 ext. 3257


http://www.w3.org/ -- 9 April, 1998 -- The World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C) today announced the release of the Synchronized Multimedia
Integration Language specification as a W3C Proposed Recommendation. The
W3C Synchronized Multimedia (SYMM) Working Group has determined that the
SMIL specification is stable, contributes to Web interoperability, is
supported for industry-wide adoption, and is ready to enter the review
and voting process by the W3C Membership. 

W3C Process 

Specifications developed within W3C working groups must be formally
approved by the Membership. Consensus is reached after a specification
has proceeded through the following review stages: Working Draft,
Proposed Recommendation, and Recommendation. 

Stable working drafts are submitted by working groups to the W3C
Director for consideration as a Proposed Recommendation. Upon the
Director's approval, the document becomes a "Proposed Recommendation",
and is forwarded to the W3C Membership to vote on becoming an official
W3C Recommendation. 

The W3C Advisory Committee -- comprised of one official representative
from each Member organization -- submits one of the following votes on
the Proposed Recommendation: yes; yes, with comments; no, unless
specified deficiencies are corrected; no, this Proposed Recommendation
should be abandoned. 

During this voting period, the Working Group expects to resolve minor
technical issues and communicate its results to the W3C Director. After
this time, the Director will announce the disposition of the document;
it may become a W3C Recommendation (possibly with minor changes), revert
to Working Draft status, or may be dropped as a W3C work item. 

The Member voting and review period lasts approximately 6 weeks. 

SMIL 

Created and developed by the W3C Synchronized Multimedia (SYMM) Working
Group, the SMIL specification is an XML-based language for writing
"TV-like" multimedia presentations for the World Wide Web. 

SMIL enables multimedia synchronization over time easily; an author, for
example, can write documents with sequences such as "play audio file 'A'
in parallel with video file 'B' or "show image 'C' after audio file 'A'
has finished playing".  A key advantage of SMIL is that it reduces the
bandwidth of TV-like content, eliminating the need to convert
low-bandwidth media types (such as text and images) into high-bandwidth
video. In addition, SMIL documents can be authored using a simple text
editor, following the success model of HTML. Multimedia authors can
describe a presentation using three simple SMIL elements without the
need to learn a complex scripting language. 

W3C continues to evolve the SMIL specification to provide even more
functionality and to ensure consistency of implementation world-wide. 

The W3C SYMM Working Group includes both key industry players such as
Digital Equipment Corporation, Lucent/Bell Labs, Microsoft, Philips
N.V., RealNetworks and The Productivity Works; as well as research and
government organizations such as CWI(Centre for Mathematics
and Computer Science, the Netherlands) and NIST (National Institute of
Standards and Technology, USA). 

The SMIL specification has been produced as part of the W3C Synchronized
Multimedia Activity, and is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/PR-SMIL 

For more information on the Synchronized Multimedia Activity, please see
http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo 

For more information on the W3C Process, please see
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Process/ 


About the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) 

The W3C was created to develop common protocols that enhance the
interoperability and promote the evolution of the World Wide Web. It is
an industry consortium jointly run by the MIT Laboratory for Computer
Science (LCS) in the USA, the National Institute for Research in
Computer Science and Control (INRIA) in France and Keio University in
Japan. Services provided by the Consortium include: a repository of
information about the World Wide Web for developers and users; sample
code implementations to embody and promote standards; and various
prototype and sample applications to demonstrate use of new technology.
To date, more than 250 organizations are Members of the Consortium. 

For more information about the World Wide Web Consortium, see
http://www.w3.org/ 

W3C Hosts 

    MIT Laboratory for Computer Science http://www.lcs.mit.edu/ 
    INRIA http://www.inria.fr/ 
    Keio University http://www.keio.ac.jp/

Received on Thursday, 9 April 1998 10:05:18 UTC