RealNetworks announced the release of source code for Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL, pronounced “smile”), an open standard for synchronized display of digital presentations, to the Helix Community. With the source code of SMIL 2.0 and the Helix… DNA Client, Helix community developers can support display of complex presentations in their products, the company said. According to RealNetworks, the Helix DNA Client is already being used to enable Internet media functionality on consumer electronics devices such as DVD players, set-top boxes, PDAs, and other mobile devices.

“We are pleased to contribute our world class implementation of SMIL into the Helix community to assist Helix DNA developers in leveraging the most comprehensive and open multi-format platform for digital media,” said
RealNetworks vice president of Helix Products and Solutions, Nagesh Pabbisetty.

RealNetworks said it is a contributor to both the SMIL 1.0 and 2.0 specifications and that it is “proud that SMIL 2.0 is both a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Recommendation, the highest level of authorized standard, and a key component of the 3rd Generation Partnership Product (3GPP) specification for mobile multimedia.” SMIL is typically used for multimedia presentations that integrate streaming audio and video with images, text or any other media type, and is supported by the company's RealOne Player, SMIL

“SMIL is the W3C Recommendation for multimedia that allows authors to create XML-based interactive multimedia presentations,” noted Philipp Hoschka, Deputy Director for the W3C.

“Developers interested in offering content providers the ability to display their content on devices, such as set top-boxes, mobile, and handheld devices, can implement the Helix DNA Client with SMIL functionality,” RealNetworks said in a statement. “This simplifies both the product development process and the creation of content — as SMIL enables content owners to create complex media presentations without using scripting languages.”

RealNetworks said the newly available cross-platform SMIL source code, which supports Linux, Windows, and Mac, is available as of today under a no-cost open source or a royalty-based commercial license to the registered developers of the Helix community at www.helixcommunity.org.

More about SMIL

RealNetworks provided the following summary of the advantages of using the SMIL standard . . .

• Presentation layout and timing — SMIL enables content providers to arrange and manipulate elements of a presentation such as video, audio, graphics animation, and text elements to play simultaneously or on a specific time sequence.
• Tailor a presentation for different audiences — SMIL can stream different clips to audiences based on criteria such as language or available bandwidth while enabling the different presentations to be accessed with just one hyper link. When the link is clicked, the Helix DNA Client-based application reads the options in the SMIL file and chooses the appropriate presentation.
• Flexibility in media organization — A SMIL file lists a separate URL for each clip so presentations can be put together using clips stored on any server, e.g. a video clip on a Helix Universal Server and an image clip on a Web server. With this capability, SMIL eliminates the need to merge multiple clips into a single streaming file.

Licensing details

Here is RealNetworks' description of the licensing for SMIL source code . . .

As part of the Helix DNA Client, the SMIL source code is licensed under both an OSI-certified public source license and a commercial community source license. Both licenses are free of charge for research and development use. The open source RealNetworks' Public Source License (RPSL) is royalty free and requires licensees to open source their application. The RealNetworks Community Source License (RCSL) includes a royalty for commercial use and enables licensees to retain proprietary control over the intellectual property in the products they build using the code.

About Helix

RealNetworks provided the following description of its Helix initiative . . .

Helix is the industry's only open comprehensive multi-format digital media platform. The Helix platform consists of source code developed by RealNetworks over the past nine years for the creation, delivery and playback of digital media, as well as a set of interfaces for building media-enabled applications. With over 10,000 members, the Helix community is enabled to use this source code to build media-capable products with industry-leading technology, intellectual property and commonly used interfaces. The Helix community offers source code of the Helix platform under two source licenses, the commercial RealNetworks Community Source License and the open source RealNetworks Public Source License, both available at www.helixcommunity.org. RealNetworks has also released a family of products built on top of the Helix platform, including the Helix Producer, Helix Universal Server, Helix DRM and RealOne Player.

 
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