Web standards
In early 1996, a concern rapidly gained considerable importance on the Web - the development of multimedia, either static as with images and text, or dynamic with sound and video. Such documents had to be guaranteed to remain usable in such heterogeneous environments as a computer, a cell phone and a TV set. Several W3C work groups were set up to devise solutions. I have been working for several years in one of these groups called "Synchronized multimedia Working Group".
The group was seeded in 1995, with the goal of adapting multimedia documents to the Web, defining temporal relations between the different information elements in a document and planning how sound, images and video will fit together within the space of the screen as well as in time. This work group develops a language called SMIL, to which INRIA researchers greatly contributed, especially through concepts developed during my doctoral thesis. The first SMIL version was standardized in June 1998, the second one in August 2001, Version 2.1 in may 2005. The format is already widely used, for example by Realplayer and by MMS multimedia messages that succeed SMS messages in a version adapted to cell phones.
Here are my contributions to W3C Recommendations.
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W3C Recommendation, World Wide Web Consortium. 13 December 2005.SMIL 2.1 provides a scalability framework, where a family of scalable SMIL profiles can be defined using subsets of the SMIL 2.1 language profile. A SMIL document can be authored conforming to a scalable SMIL profile such that it provides limited functionality on a resource-constrained device while allowing richer capabilities on a more capable device. SMIL 2.1 Basic (or SMIL Basic) is a profile that meets the needs of resource-constrained devices such as minimum capability mobile phones. The SMIL Basic profile provides the basis for defining scalable SMIL profiles. SMIL Basic is SMIL host language conformant. It consists of precisely those modules that are required for SMIL host language conformance. This section defines the SMIL 2.1 Basic profile and requirements for conforming SMIL Basic documents and SMIL Basic user agents. More, it describes scalable SMIL profiles, guidelines for defining them, and their conformance requirements.
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W3C Recommendation, World Wide Web Consortium. 13 December 2005.The SMIL 2.1 Language Profile describes the SMIL 2.1 modules that are included in the SMIL 2.1 Language and details how these modules are integrated. It contains support for all of the major SMIL 2.1 features including animation, content control, layout, linking, media object, meta-information, structure, timing and transition effects. It is designed for Web clients that support direct playback from SMIL 2.1 markup.
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W3C Recommendation, World Wide Web Consortium. 13 December 2005.
This document specifies the second version of the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL, pronounced "smile"). SMIL 2.1 has the following design goals:
- Define an XML-based language that allows authors to write interactive multimedia presentations. Using SMIL, an author can describe the temporal behaviour of a multimedia presentation, associate hyperlinks with media objects and describe the layout of the presentation on a screen.
- Allow reusing of SMIL syntax and semantics in other XML-based languages, in particular those who need to represent timing and synchronization. For example, SMIL components are used for integrating timing into XHTML and into SVG
- Extend the functionalities contained in the SMIL 2.0 into new or revised SMIL 2.1 modules.
- Define new SMIL 2.1 Mobile Profiles incorporating features useful within the mobile industry.
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W3C Recommendation, World Wide Web Consortium. 07 January 2005.This document specifies the second version and second edition of the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL, pronounced "smile"). SMIL 2.0 Second Edition has the following two design goals: 1) Define an XML-based language that allows authors to write interactive multimedia presentations. Using SMIL 2.0, an author can describe the temporal behavior of a multimedia presentation, associate hyperlinks with media objects and describe the layout of the presentation on a screen and 2) Allow reusing of SMIL syntax and semantics in other XML-based languages, in particular those who need to represent timing and synchronization. For example, SMIL 2.0 components are used for integrating timing into XHTML and into SVG.
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W3C Recommendation, World Wide Web Consortium. 7 August 2001.The SMIL 2.0 profile describes the SMIL 2.0 modules that are included in the SMIL 2.0 Language and details how these modules are integrated. It contains support for all of the major SMIL 2.0 features including animation, content control, layout, linking, media object, meta-information, structure, timing and transition effects. It is designed for Web clients that support direct playback from SMIL 2.0 markup.
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W3C Recommendation, World Wide Web Consortium. 7 August 2001.This document specifies the second version of the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL, pronounced "smile"). SMIL 2.0 has the following two design goals: 1) Define an XML-based language that allows authors to write interactive multimedia presentations. Using SMIL 2.0, an author can describe the temporal behavior of a multimedia presentation, associate hyperlinks with media objects and describe the layout of the presentation on a screen and 2) Allow reusing of SMIL syntax and semantics in other XML-based languages, in particular those who need to represent timing and synchronization. For example, SMIL 2.0 components are used for integrating timing into XHTML and into SVG.
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SMIL: Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language [English], [Chinese], [German], [Italian], [Japanese], [Korean], [Portuguese], [bib]W3C Recommendation. World Wide Web Consortium. April 1998.This document specifies version 1 of the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL 1.0, pronounced "smile"). SMIL allows integrating a set of independent multimedia objects into a synchronized multimedia presentation. Using SMIL, an author can
- describe the temporal behavior of the presentation
- describe the layout of the presentation on a screen
- associate hyperlinks with media objects
And other W3C Working Drafts that did not complete.
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Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) Document Object Model [html]W3C W3C Working Draft, World Wide Web Consortium. 3-August-1999 .This is a working draft of a Document Object Model (DOM) specification for synchronized multimedia functionality. It is part of work in the Synchronized Multimedia Working Group (SYMM) towards a next version of the SMIL language and SMIL modules. Related documents describe the specific application of this SMIL DOM for SMIL documents and for HTML and XML documents that integrate SMIL functionality. The SMIL DOM builds upon the Core DOM functionality, adding support for timing and synchronization, media integration and other extensions to support synchronized multimedia documents.