Multimedia Specification Design and Production

2013 / Semester 2 / week 5Lecturer: Dr. Nikos Gazepidisgazepidis@ist.edu.gr

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Learning outcomes

• XML - Extensible Markup Language

• SGML - Standard Generalized Markup Language

• SMIL - Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language

• SMIL 2.0 Modules

Multimedia & XML

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Reading List:

1.Extensible Markup Languagehttp://www.w3.org/XML/

2.Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/REC-SMIL2-20050107/

3.Synchronized Multimediahttp://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/

3.Synchronized Multimedia Activity Statementhttp://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/Activity.html

Multimedia & XML

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Multimedia & XML

What is XML?

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a simple, very flexible text format

derived from Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML).

designed especially for Web documents

It allows designers to create their own customized tags

extensible - not fixed format like HTML

XML is a metalanguage - a language for describing other languages

IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Sun all agree: XML is the key to e-Business

XML enables business application sharing, direct transactions and other

business applications via electronic data interchange (EDI) documents

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Multimedia & XML

SGML

a system for organizing and tagging elements of a document.

SGML was developed and standardized by the International Organization

for Standards (ISO) in 1986. SGML itself does not specify any particular

formatting; rather, it specifies the rules for tagging elements. These tags

can then be interpreted to format elements in different ways.

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Multimedia & XML

Structured Data

In a large variety of domains:

Electronic Documents

Web Mining

Information Retrieval

BioInformatics

Computer Vision

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Multimedia & XML

SMIL - XML based language for multimedia

The most advanced way to integrate different information formats in XML is

SMIL Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language.

SMIL is designed to combine text, graphics, video and audio in real-time, to

schedule, synchronize, their presentation. SMIL allows to specify what is

presented, where, when and how.

SMIL documents are XML 1.0 documents. SMIL uses its own DTD-file,

which describes its elements and attributes for them. Basic layout is

consistent with the visual rendering model defined in CSS2 (Cascading Style

Sheets, level 2).

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Multimedia & XML

SMIL - XML based language for multimedia

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Multimedia & XML

When should we use SMIL?

SMIL XML is a potential replacement for presentations typically produced by

using one of the many rapid elearning development tools. If you find yourself

copying and pasting layouts, content, templates, etc. from one presentation

to the next. Typical rapid elearning development tools that SMIL can replace

are:

Adobe Captivate Adobe Presenter (converts Microsoft PowerPoint to Flash*) Articulate Raptivity Rapid Intake etc.

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Multimedia & XML

SMIL - short history

Dec 1995 SMIL designing started

Nov 1997 First public release of SMIL

Nov 1999 Release of SMIL Boston (SMIL 2.0)

Jan 2000 Internet Explorer 5.5 player preview, which supports

selected SMIL 2.0 components

June 2001 W3C Proposed Recommendation of the

Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language

(SMIL) 2.0 specification

June 2001 GRiNS, a new version of the SMIL-2 player with full

support for the W3C SMIL 2.0 Proposed

Recommendation

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Multimedia & XML

Players

Currently only one browser which supports fully SMIL 2.0 - GRiNS/SMIL 2.0

Player (Oratrix).

For example Microsoft IE 5.5 support only some selected components of

SMIL 2.0, Microsoft's own version of SMIL is called HTML+TIME.

RealNetworks RealPlayer with better/full support for SMIL 2.0 is expecting to

be available end of September.

For SMIL 3.0 there are available multiple players and editors.

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Multimedia & XML

SMIL 2.0 modules

SMIL 2.0 consist currently of following functional modules:

• The Animation Modules

• The Content Control Modules

• The Layout Modules

• The Linking Modules

• The Media Object Modules

• The Metainformation Module

• The Structure Module

• The Transition Effects Module

• The Timing and Synchronization Module

• The Time Manipulations Module

Currently only GRiNS/SMIL 2.0 Player by Oratrix supports all these modules.

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Multimedia & XML

• Animation modules

The purpose of Animation Module is to enable controlling different media

objects in one time line. Module also includes several methods for creating

special effects to different multimedia components.

Animation module consists of BasicAnimation and SplineAnimation modules.

<DIV ID="oDIV" STYLE="position:absolute; top:170; left:50; width:100; height:50; border:solid black 1px; text-align:center;background-color:yellow;">DIV animation </DIV><t:ANIMATE targetElement="oDIV" attributeName="left" to="450" dur="5" fill="hold" accelerate="1"/>

<DIV ID="oDIV" STYLE="position:absolute; top:170; left:50; width:100; height:50; border:solid black 1px; text-align:center;background-color:yellow;">DIV animation </DIV><t:ANIMATE targetElement="oDIV" attributeName="left" to="450" dur="5" fill="hold" accelerate="1"/>

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Multimedia & XML

• Content control

Content Control Modules consists of four separate modules. These modules

allow to make different content choices based on runtime variables.

<t:switch><span class="time" systemLanguage="es">Somos interdependientes (Espanol)</span><span class="time" systemLanguage="pt">Ns somos interdependentes (Portuguese)</span><span class="time" systemLanguage="de">Wir sprechen (Deutsch)</span><span class="time" systemLanguage="en">We are interdependent (English)</span><span class="time">None of the above</span></t:switch>

<t:switch><span class="time" systemLanguage="es">Somos interdependientes (Espanol)</span><span class="time" systemLanguage="pt">Ns somos interdependentes (Portuguese)</span><span class="time" systemLanguage="de">Wir sprechen (Deutsch)</span><span class="time" systemLanguage="en">We are interdependent (English)</span><span class="time">None of the above</span></t:switch>

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Multimedia & XML

• Layout modules

The Layout Modules consist of one primary BasicLayout module and three

additional modules: AudioLayout, MultiWindowLayout, and

HierarchicalLayout modules.

Layout modules allows to position different media elements and control the

audio volume.

<layout> <region id="r" top="15px" left="20px" width="100px" height="50px"/></layout>

<layout> <region id="r" top="15px" left="20px" width="100px" height="50px"/></layout>

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Multimedia & XML

• Linking modules

1.The linking modules define attributes and elements for hyperlinks.

2.By the hyperlinks it is possible to interact with multimedia

applications.

3.Linking Modules consist of LinkingAttributes, BasicLinking and

ObjectLinking Modules.

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Multimedia & XML

• Media Object Modules

One of the important modules. It defines supported media types:

Continuous Media is audio file, video file or other media for which there

is a measurable and well-understood duration. For example, a five second

audio clip is continuous media.

Discrete Media consist of text files, pictures and other media types, which

are not time related. JPEG image is generally considered discrete media,

because there's nothing in the file indicating how long the JPEG should be

displayed.

Intrinsic Duration - the duration of a referenced item without any explicit

timing markup.

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Multimedia & XML

Media Object Modules also define different media object elements for

SMIL browsers

1.Animation

2.Audio

3.Img

4.Text

5.textstream

6.video

7.ref - Generic media reference

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Multimedia & XML

Media Object Modules: MediaClipping And MediaClipMarkers Modules

MediaClipping module enables to control the media objects in timeline. It

contains two attributes, clipBegin and clipEnd, which specifies the start and

endpoints of the media.

MediaClipMarkers module is used to define time points in a media object, not

clock values.

<button id=startMedia2>Play using clipBegin</button><button id=stopMedia2>Stop</button><t:media begin="startMedia2.click" end="stopMedia2.click" clipBegin="1" src="badday.mpg" mute="true" timeAction="display" style="height=250; width=350" />

<button id=startMedia2>Play using clipBegin</button><button id=stopMedia2>Stop</button><t:media begin="startMedia2.click" end="stopMedia2.click" clipBegin="1" src="badday.mpg" mute="true" timeAction="display" style="height=250; width=350" />

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Multimedia & XML

The Metainformation Module

The purpose of metainformation module is to make the data better

understandable for browsers. Using Metainformation Module is voluntary,

but recommended.

The Structure Module

The Structure module provides the base elements for structuring SMIL

content like <smil>, <head> and <body>.

Transition Effects Module

The Transition Effects Module makes it possible to make transtitions like

fades and wipes in presentations.

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Multimedia & XML

Timing and Synchronization Module

The most important module in SMIL. Defines tools and methods to synchronize

presentation over time.

SMIL supports tree different timing methods:

• <seq> element plays after previous has ended, one after one.

• <excl> is similar to , but this element doesn't specify any order.

• <par> elements allow parallel media presentation, many elements played in

same time.

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Multimedia & XML

The Time Manipulations Module

Advanced time manipulation elements like REVERSE and SPEED

All media types don't support all these methods - for example MPEG 1 video

format

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Multimedia & XML

SMIL 3.0 in the future

• SMIL is an efficient language for synchronizing and timing different kind of

media objects.

• It has hard competitors which have their own version of synchronizing

multimedia (e.g. Flash and RealAudio).

• It needs support from big browser companies like Microsoft and Netscape to

succeed.

• SMIL has although good chances to become more popular - its simplicity

(only text-editor needed for making presentations) and XML-origin allows

much better compatability compared to its competitors.