News Release: World Wide Web Consortium Issues SMIL 2.0 as a W3C Recommendation

For more information on SMIL 2.0, including contact information for
implementors, please contact Janet Daly, +1 617 253 5884.

World Wide Web Consortium Issues SMIL 2.0 as a W3C
Recommendation

XML Meets Synchronized Multimedia; Accessible and Rich Web
Experiences Result

Contact America -- 
     Janet Daly, <janet@w3.org>, +1.617.253.5884 or +1.617.253.2613 
Contact Europe -- 
     Marie-Claire Forgue, <mcf@w3.org>, +33.492.38.75.94 
Contact Asia -- 
     Saeko Takeuchi <saeko@w3.org>, +81.466.49.1170 

(also available in French and Japanese)

Web Resources

This announcement:
	http://www.w3.org/2001/08/smil2-pressrelease

Testimonials from CWI, Daisy Consortium, IBM, INRIA, Intel, Microsoft, 
Nokia, Inc., Oratrix, Panasonic, and RealNetworks:
	http://www.w3.org/2001/08/smil2-testimonial

SMIL 2.0 Specification:
	http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-smil20-20010807/

More on SMIL and Synchronized Multimedia at W3C:
	http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo


http://www.w3.org/ -- 9 August 2001 -- The World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C) today released the SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration
Language) 2.0 specification as a W3C Recommendation, representing
cross-industry agreement on an XML-based language that allows authors to
write interactive multimedia presentations. A W3C Recommendation
indicates that a specification is stable, contributes to Web
interoperability, and has been reviewed by the W3C Membership, who favor
its adoption by the industry.

SMIL 2.0 Uses XML to Deliver Synchronized Multimedia to the Web

Web authors are in search of ways to deliver rich content, including
video, audio, and text, and to synchronize those components as they see
fit. It's no longer simply television on the Web that end users are
seeking; people are looking for information and experiences that take
full advantage of the Web's technical capabilities - interoperability,
flexibility, device choice, and searchability.

"SMIL 2.0 enables authors to bring rich content to the Web in a format
that is easily written and reused," explained Tim Berners-Lee, W3C
Director. "SMIL 2.0 avoids the limitations of traditional television and
lowers the bandwidth requirements for delivering multimedia content over
the Internet."

With SMIL 2.0, producing reusable audio-visual presentations is easy; as
SMIL 2.0 is an XML application, one may use a simple text editor to
create engaging multimedia experiences for the Web. SMIL allows the
author to incorporate a wide range of data (audio, video, or text),
which may be locally or remotely stored.

SMIL 2.0 Built and Tested with Developers, Users in Mind

SMIL 1.0, produced by W3C in 1998, brought powerful XML based multimedia
presentations to the Web, and content developers began work on
presentations, authoring tools and players. As a result, the W3C
Synchronized Multimedia (SYMM) Working Group received suggestions and 
requests from developers on new features they would like to see. Over 
600 test cases were developed to ensure that SMIL 2.0 would meet the 
needs of developers for new features and interoperability with SMIL 1.0.

SMIL 2.0 Brings Greater Authoring Flexibility

SMIL 2.0 has been produced as a set of modules which, individually or in
combinations, may meet the needs of a Web author, and build on the
guiding principles of interoperability at the core of W3C work. In
addition to full incorporation of the successful SMIL 1.0 features, SMIL
2.0 Modules provide functionalities including animation; content
control; layout; linking; media objects; metainformation; structure;
timing and synchronization; time manipulations; and transition effects.
This gives authors the ability to create sophisticated animation,
event-based interaction with a presentation, and graceful transition
effects based on nearly 100 predefined options.

SMIL 2.0 Profiles Work with Diverse Devices

By combining individual modules together, the W3C SYMM Working Group
defines two SMIL 2.0 profiles. Profiling introduces the ability to
tailor an XML-based language to specific needs, e.g. to optimize
presentation and interaction for the client's capabilities. One profile
is for comprehensive SMIL 2.0 presentations, and another suited to
handheld/mobile devices, called SMIL Basic. This gives authors the
ability to create presentations which are adaptable to different
environments, whether limitations are due to bandwidth or device.

Profiling also adds the ability for integrating functionality from other
markup languages. The work done to combine Scalable Vector Graphics
(SVG) with SMIL 2.0 Modules has proven successful, and the early work
with combining XHTML modules is promising.

SMIL 2.0 Makes Searchable and Accessible Multimedia Possible

Multimedia presentations can sometimes be a bit of a black box to those
searching for information on the Web. Because a SMIL presentation is
written as a text file, it can include metadata components, which make a
SMIL presentation searchable.

The SYMM Working Group worked closely with W3C's Web Accessibility
Initiative to develop a format that supported accessible media.
Accessibility Features of SMIL are described in a separate document, and
show how authors and software developers may create presentations and
software that make SMIL work for the widest possible audience.

International Cross-Industry Participation Key to SMIL 2.0 Development

The SMIL 2.0 specification was written and developed by the SYMM Working
Group, a unique mix of experts from many divergent industries - CD-ROM
manufacturers, Interactive Television, Web, Mobile Communications, and
audio/video streaming - all interested in bringing synchronized
multimedia to the Web. The W3C SYMM Working Group is comprised of key
industry players including Glocomm, IBM, Intel, Macromedia, Microsoft,
Netscape/AOL, Nokia, Oratrix, Panasonic, Philips, RealNetworks and WGBH;
as well as research and government organizations such as CWI (Centre for
Mathematics and Computer Science, the Netherlands), INRIA (Institut
National De Recherce en Informatique et en Automatique, France), and
NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA).
Manufacturers of both SMIL Players and SMIL authoring tools are
committed to supporting SMIL 2.0, as evidenced in their testimonials.

About the World Wide Web Consortium [W3C]

The W3C was created to lead the Web to its full potential by developing
common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its
interoperability. It is an international industry consortium jointly run
by the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT 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, and various prototype and sample applications
to demonstrate use of new technology. To date, over 520 organizations
are Members of the Consortium. For more information see
http://www.w3.org/

Testimonials

CWI | Daisy Consortium | IBM | INRIA | Intel | Microsoft | Nokia, Inc. |
Oratrix | Panasonic | RealNetworks


CWI is proud to have contributed to all phases of SMIL development. SMIL
2.0 is a major step forward in not only presenting advanced multimedia
on the Web but also in truly incorporating multimedia into the Web
infrastructure. SMIL 2.0 provides all the engaging multimedia features
that until now were only available on the Web through programming
languages and proprietary formats. It also introduces new features such
as rich adaptivity to different market groups, user abilities, system
configurations and run-time system delays.
-- Gerard van Oortmerssen, Director, CWI - The National Research
Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science in the Netherlands

The DAISY Consortium highly commends and warmly welcomes the SMIL 2.0
Recommendation, a key development for information acces by people who
are blind or print-disabled. "We created the worldwide standard for
digital talking-books as one of the first applications of SMIL 1.0, and
now we will move quickly to implement SMIL 2.0." Digital talking-books
are beneficial to blind and print-disabled readers, enabling them to
easily navigate through the book to find chapters, subsections and
pages. The DAISY standard uses XML for text markup and SMIL for text and
audio synchronisation.
-- William Jolley, Secretary General of the DAISY Consortium


IBM wishes to congratulate the SYMM working group of the W3C in bringing
SMIL 2.0 successfully to a Recommendation. SMIL 2.0 has been chosen as
the basis for an MPEG standard, the XMT (eXtensible MPEG-4 Textual
Format), a textual format for MPEG-4. IBM has led the standardization
activity of XMT, a specification designed to provide interoperability
between SMIL 2.0 and MPEG-4, as well as between X3D and MPEG-4.
-- Dr. Robert S. Sutor, Director, e-Business Standards Strategy, IBM

INRIA welcomes the release of SMIL 2.0 as a W3C Recommendation.
Multimedia and telecommunications are high priority application domains
among research directions at INRIA. With the new features introduced in
SMIL 2.0, W3C makes a significant contribution to these domains.
Modularization of SMIL 2.0 is a means to extending multimedia
functionality onto newer platforms such as mobiles devices and allows
SMIL 2.0 to target a wider range of Web clients with different
capabilities. Furthermore, the introduction of a better support for
interactivity and additional functionality such as animations and
transitions will significantly increase the range of multimedia Web
applications. INRIA is proud of its contribution to SMIL 2.0 as an open
standard that will increase new interoperable applications design for
the Web.
-- Gérard Giraudon, Director for Development and Industrial Relations,
INRIA

Today's increasingly powerful processors are making possible compelling
new multimedia web experiences. By making it much easier for developers
to create sophisticated interactive multimedia applications, SMIL 2.0
will play an important role in making these experiences a reality. With
the broad industry support that has emerged behind this standard in the
Web and wireless community, we expect that SMIL 2.0-based content will
very soon be delivering great web experiences to millions of Internet
subscribers.
-- Steve Spina, Director of Marketing, Intel Architecture Labs

Microsoft is pleased to have actively participated in the development of
SMIL 2.0, providing valuable support and feedback gained through early
implementations of this technology. In June of 2000, Microsoft Internet
Explorer version 5.5 was the first product to support SMIL 2.0
technology, based on working drafts. Internet Explorer 6, which is
currently available as a Public Preview and will be released as part of
Windows XP later this year, expands on that support. Version 2.0 of SMIL
addresses two important needs of the Web community: modularity and
integration. The modularity of SMIL 2.0 allows relevant modules to be
plugged together as needed. Integrating the powerful SMIL 2.0 multimedia
capabilities, such as media, timing, animation, and transitions with
XHTML enables content creators to leverage new developments from other
W3C working groups.
-- Chris Jones, Vice President, Windows Client Group, Microsoft
Corporation

Nokia welcomes the release of SMIL 2.0 as a W3C Recommendation. We
believe that SMIL 2.0 will play a significant role in future mobile
multimedia applications such as Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) and
mobile streaming. Nokia has demonstrated its committment to W3C open
standards by contributing to the adoption of the mobile-friendly SMIL
2.0 Basic profile for mobile streaming applications, as specified in the
3GPP consortium. By allowing the integration and synchronization of
different media, such as text, voice, audio and eventually video clips,
SMIL 2.0 and its "Basic" profile will bring new exciting possibilities
to mobile terminals.
-- Janne Juhola, Senior Technology Manager, Multimedia - Nokia Mobile
Phones, Nokia, Inc.

Oratrix Development in Amsterdam is the maker of the successful GRiNS
editor for SMIL 1.0, and a major participant in the SMIL 2.0 process. We
feel confident that SMIL 2.0 will provide a major step forward for
streaming media on the Web. SMIL 2.0 will allow all sorts of users, from
individuals to broadcast professionals, to create compelling,
interactive content. The beta users of our SMIL 2.0-based GRiNS editor
have given us rave feedback on the easy integration of transitions,
animation, and especially adaptive content from a single source base.
And all of this without scripting or a back room full of IT staff! The
ability to produce single presentations that target wireless, web and
broadband is also a strong suit of SMIL 2.0.
-- Dick Bulterman, CEO, Oratrix

Panasonic is delighted that SMIL 2.0 has been approved as a W3C
Recommendation. In coming 3G wireless internet services, we expect that
SMIL Basic will become the common and scalable platform of mobile
communications, and serve for customers with a wide range of home
appliances.
-- Yasunori Tanaka, General Manager, Core Software Development Center,
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

RealNetworks believes that SMIL is a vital component of the Internet
media delivery architecture. We're thrilled that through hard work and
perseverance, a broad community of industry leaders brought this
powerful next generation of SMIL to reality. The W3C continues to drive
the evolution of multimedia on the Web by providing outstanding
leadership in promoting interoperability and standards.
-- Martin Plaehn, Senior Vice President, Media Systems, RealNetworks,
Inc.


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Received on Thursday, 9 August 2001 10:35:36 UTC