Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language
SMIL (pronounced "smile") is an abbreviation for the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language. It is a W3C Recommendation for describing multimedia presentations using XML (Extensible Markup Language). It defines timing markup, layout markup, animations, visual transitions, and media embedding, among other things.
SMIL 1.0 became an official recommendation in June 1998. SMIL 2.0 became an official recommendation in August 2001. SMIL 2.1 became an official recommendation in December 2005. SMIL 2.1 includes a small number of extensions based on practical experience gathered using SMIL in the Multimedia Messaging System on mobile phones.
A SMIL document is similar in structure to an HTML document in that they are typically divided between a <head> section and a <body> section. The <head> section contains layout and metadata information. The <body> section contains the timing information, and is generally comprised of combinations of two main tags: parallel ("<par>") and sequential ("<seq>"). SMIL refers to media objects by URLs, allowing them to be shared between presentations and stored on different servers for load balancing. The language can also associate different media objects with different bandwidths.
SMIL is being implemented on handheld and mobile devices and has also spawned the subset known as MMS : Multimedia Messaging Service which is a video and picture equivalent of SMS. MMS is also jokingly called Mini-Me SMIL by multimedia technicians in the mobile content industry.
SMIL 2.0 introduced a modular language structure that facilitated integration of SMIL semantics into other XML-based languages. Basic animation and timing modules were integrated into Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) and the SMIL modules formed a basis for Timed-Text. The modular structure made it possible to define the standard SMIL language profile and the XHTML+SMIL language profile with common syntax and standard semantics.
See also
- Semantic Web
- HTML+SMIL, XHTML+SMIL
- MMS - MMS is a subset of SMIL for mobile telephone multimedia messaging
- SVG - Scalable Vector Graphics (MIME type: image/svg+xml )- an open standard XML vocabulary for vector graphics which can integrate with SMIL
- Timed-Text - a W3C standard for synchronized captioning.
- Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica CWI - Research Institute in the Netherlands with a focus on SMIL
- NCL - Nested Context Language
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