RE: SMIL Validation

Geoff --

I really did know that RealPlayer and SMIL were *not* the same think, but I 
assumed that G2 got it *right* -- but from what you write it sounds like we 
are in the good-old-bad-days like with Netscape and HTML 2.0!

Are you saying that it is not possible to write a SMIL file that follows 
the W3C specs that also works as intended with RealPlayer?

I am using the files contained in car.zip and elev1.zip posted at your site 
from URL:
http://www.wgbh.org/wgbh/movies/

I have no way to confirm it with any certainty, but the "live" files are 
hosted by the Able channel at URL:
http://www.tvontheweb.com/channels/able/

From what (little) I know, one CANNOT download "live" SMIL files, even 
though they are plain ASCII text.  (This is true of the binary RealMedia 
files too.)  One would think that there is some clever way around this. 
 Anyone on this list know the trick?  The files don't seem to be kept in 
the browser cache either.  Personally, I would MUCH rather just download  
 the RealMedia (.rm) files (and play them offline), but I think keeping the 
source out the hands of the users is one of the products "features".

I have mirror the files on my agency's site.  I don't have the RealPlayer 
server software/hardware, so the files are just raw.  You can't play them 
(you'll get an error message), but they will download.  It would be nice if 
NCAM did this (hint, hint), especially since the audio and video tracks 
don't compress much (having the files in a single archive is nice though).

The SMIL validation report can be found (for the time being) at URL:
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://www.dors.sailorsite.net/ncam_sm  
il/car.smi

Geoff, you are in a position better than anyone to answer the question that 
got me started with this.
	Given a RealAudio file (like cardescen.rm) and captions (say, for example, 
carcapsen.rt), what does the WORKING .smi text file look like that plays 
WITHOUT a "videoregion"?  (Or at least the minimum size necessary.)

Thank you.

-- Bruce


On Monday, December 20, 1999 1:56 PM, geoff freed 
[SMTP:geoff_freed@wgbh.org] wrote:
> Hi, Bruce:
>
> I am curious to know what CAR file you used as a source, as there are a 
couple available.  Also, there is at least one kludge built into the 
CAR.SMI file:  the textregion contains a negative number:
>
> <region id="textregion" top="135" left="-37" height="120" width="250"/> 
</layout>
>
> which is necessary due to a bug in the G2 Player's ability to center text 
properly.  This will definitely screw up a validation report.  Can you send 
me the report?  Thanks.
>
> FYI, the text file used for the captions is a RealText file, which is 
proprietary to RealNetworks.  That will also not validate properly.
>
> Geoff Freed
> WGBH/NCAM

Received on Monday, 20 December 1999 17:22:15 UTC