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

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.