MuTV and SMIL

hoschka> The first draft of a language for describing synchronized multimedia
hoschka> presentations is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-smil
hoschka> This draft was produced by the W3C working group on Synchronized Multimedia.
hoschka> Comments/Feedback from people on this list are *very* welcome. They should be sent 
hoschka> to www-multimedia@w3.org.

Philipp,

SMIL interests me since I had done a simple language called MuTV
with a similar goal of reduced bandwidth. I am wondering whether
or how some of the features of MuTV can now be implemented in SMIL
(and if they can't, whether you would like to add them!):

(1) Shapes as media objects:
MuTV provides point, line, rectangle, oval, triangle, and arc.
(No MIME type for these? Image types require more bits.)

(2) Media object motion (dynamic layout):
MuTV allows objects to change their location, size, color, and
other parameters over time.

(3) Arbitrary recursion:
Once you have created a MuTV program, you can use it inside other
programs. You have the option of
  (a) truncating its duration
  (b) scaling its duration (making it run, say, twice as fast)
  (c) placing it in the window at a given position and
      with a given size (enabling picture-in-picture effects)
  (d) changing its position and size over time
      (enabling zooming into the program, having the program
      roll across the screen, and other ADO-like effects)

(4) Absolute timestamps and ability to display the current time
within text (enabling pseudo live TV).

For a short demo of these capabilities, point a Java-enabled
browser at http://www.panix.com/~erik/utv/wutvt.htm

The idea is you can do more with the language itself, instead of having
to create images/videos already containing the shapes/transformations.

What do you think?

-Erik

Signiform
www.signiform.com

Received on Sunday, 23 November 1997 16:09:11 UTC