Re: MHEG

>On  8 Dec 97, Neil Ridgway wrote:
>
>> What are the differences between SMIL and the MHEG standard?
>
>I was wondering when someone would ask this.  It strikes me that SMIL 
>is addressing much the same problems - i.e., device independent 
>representation of multimedia data objects 

on that high level of abstraction, all things look pretty similar, 
of course :-)

MHEG, and many other formats developed in the area of Multimedia
have been discussed at the W3C Workshop on "Real Time Multimedia
and the Web" in October 96.

http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/RTMW96.html

This workshop brought together experts from many different 
multimedia areas and industries. Pretty much all major
players were present.

http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/9610_Workshop/participants.html

Many of these experts are now activley participating in the 
W3C Synchronized Multimedia Working Group (SYMM), which is 
producing SMIL.

The workshop spent a whole day on presenting formats.
http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/9610_Workshop/minutes.html#24
http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/9610_Workshop/index.html

The formats presented at the workshop included MHEG, HyTime,
Quicktime, Lingo

>12 months or so.  Was anyone who is now involved in SMIL seriously 
>involved in MHEG before?

yes, quite a few people with MHEG experience participated and are
still participating in the W3C WG that is producing SMIL.

-Philipp Hoschka, W3C