RealNetworks Opens SMIL Implementation

Rob Lanphier writes "RealNetworks just released the source code to their SMIL 2.0 implementation (along with JPEG, GIF, PNG, and WBMP implementations) as part of the Helix Community initiative, under the OSI-approved RPSL. Some neat tricks to do with the code: superimpose images on top of video, or transition effects between videos, using standard W3C-defined markup. More tech details in the Helix community datatype project page, or look at the SMIL production topics page. A precompiled release with this code will be coming out very soon."

Comments

Re:On a side note... (a little OT)

[CptChipJew]

Real still offers the free player. They just make it hard to find on the site, as they always have. Typically, 99% of the site is a bunch of big graphics and text advertising their free services, and some font size=1 text with a link to the "Basic Player". I can't even remember a time when the Basic player was easy to find on the website. Here are the links to download the free player:

MacOS X
Windows

So yeah, it's there, you just have to look carefully. I'm not sure whether this is smart marketing or not, but they've always done it this way.

Re:Flash Replacement?

[rexguo]

To begin with, you will need to be able to read SWF files directly. After that, you need to implement a better renderer than Flash's vector engine. After which you need to mirror ActionScript's functionality in SMIL, probably as an extension. Finally, you need a content creation tool that's very much like Flash's IDE to have a smooth migration tool for Flash developers.

SMIL is the first true multimedia XML sibling

[Qbertino]

I worked with SMIL on some Multimedia and E-learning projects. And I must say: Allthough Realplayer looks like someone did doo-doo on your screen and their interpolation algorithms and scaling was really crappy back then (and Flash ruled everywhere) the actuall intention and scope of this language is somewhat sophisticated. It goes from simple Text and Hyperlinks all the way thourgh to serious layering and Video output.
I'd actually trust SMIL to become the 'ogg' of multimedia data and Realplay with their opening Helix initiative seem determined to actually doing something usefull to the OSS community.
Let's hope it turns out well.

Re:SMIL? Don't talk to me about SMIL

[tsvk]

You are confusing the SMIL used in mobile handset multimedia messages (MMS) and SMIL in general. SMIL wasn't created for MMS purposes, it's the other way around: MMS uses SMIL to define presentation.

But MMS messages use a only a very limited subset of SMIL to define the MMS presentation. Currently an MMS is a SMIL slideshow where you link a picture, some text and a sound together for each slide (= par element), (example markup here). As you mentioned, all the Nokias ignore the timing information, etc. so the SMIL implementations by the handset makers are rather incomplete. But they very well may be so because to be MMS-conformant, they don't have to support all of SMIL.

Rember RealNetworks has only official *NIX player

[benwaggoner]

Folks seem to have a lot of bitterness towards RealNetworks. I certainly agree the download process is self-defeatingly difficult. But of the Big Three propritary formats, RealNetworks is the only one shipping a *NIX player. It's community supported only, but is really pretty good, and they provide downloadable updates to the latest.

Real also provides authoring tools for Linux, albeit command-line only.

Also, the Real codecs are really quite nice. RealVideo 9 is second only to Windows Media Video 9 in terms of compression efficiency, and performs better on lower end machines. The audio codecs are getting a little long in the tooth, but are still more than adequate for real-time streaming applications.