Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL ()) is a

World Wide Web Consortium The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 and led by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working ...

recommended

Extensible Markup Language Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...

(XML)

markup language Markup language refers to a text-encoding system consisting of a set of symbols inserted in a text document to control its structure, formatting, or the relationship between its parts. Markup is often used to control the display of the document ...

to describe

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradit ...

presentations. It defines markup for timing, layout, animations, visual transitions, and media embedding, among other things. SMIL allows presenting media items such as text, images, video, audio, links to other SMIL presentations, and files from multiple web servers. SMIL markup is written in XML, and has similarities to

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaS ...

Version history

, the

W3C Recommendation The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 and led by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working t ...

for SMIL is ''SMIL 3.0''.

SMIL 1.0

SMIL 1.0 became a W3C Recommendation on 15 June 1998.

SMIL 2.0

''SMIL 2.0'' became a W3C Recommendation on 9 August 2001. 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 Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is an XML-based vector image format for defining two-dimensional graphics, having support for interactivity and animation. The SVG specification is an open standard developed by the World Wide Web Consortium s ...

) 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.

SMIL 2.1

''SMIL 2.1'' became a W3C Recommendation on 13 December 2005. n SMIL 2.1 includes a small number of extensions based on practical experience gathered using SMIL in the

Multimedia Messaging System Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is a standard way to send messages that include multimedia content to and from a mobile phone over a cellular network. Users and providers may refer to such a message as a PXT, a picture message, or a multimedia ...

on mobile phones.

SMIL 3.0

''SMIL 3.0'' became a W3C Recommendation in December 2008. It was first submitted as a W3C Working draft on December 21, 2006. The last draft revision was released on October 6, 2008.

Authoring tools

Authoring and rendering tools for smilText and SMIL 3.0 PanZoom functionality: *Fluition by Confluent Technologies *Ezer by SMIL Media *Grins by Oratrix * GoLive 6 by Adobe, discontinued in April 2008 *Hi-Caption, a captioning tool by Hisoftware *

HomeSite HomeSite was an HTML editor originally developed by Nick Bradbury. Unlike WYSIWYG HTML editors such as Microsoft FrontPage, FrontPage and Adobe Dreamweaver, Dreamweaver, HomeSite was designed for direct editing, or "hand coding", of HTML and othe ...

by Allaire, discontinued in September 2003 *JM-Mobile Editor for mobiles using SMIL and J2ME technologies *Kino: a non-linear DV editor for

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...

. It features integration with IEEE-1394 for capture. *LimSee2 is an open source SMIL authoring tool, with support for SMIL 1.0 and SMIL 2.0. *MAGpie, a captioning tool by WGBH *MovieBoard, for e-learning (Japanese only) *MMS Simulators list *Perly SMIL, a SMIL 1.0 Perl module *ppt2smil tool is a PowerPoint macro that convert a PowerPoint presentation to a streaming SMIL presentation with audio and/or video. *RealSlideshow Basic by RealNetworks *SMIL Composer SuperToolz by HotSausage *Smibase, a server-installed software suite *SMIL Editor V2.0 by DoCoMo *SMILGen by RealNetworks, a SMIL (and XML) authoring tool designed to ease the process of XML. *SMIL Scenario Creator by KDDI *SMIRK presentation authoring tool for the production of accessible slide shows outputting to SMIL 2.0, SMIL 1.0, XHTML + SMIL, HTML 4.01. *SMOX Pad and SMOX Editor, for advanced SMIL and HTML+Time development. *SMG for a PDA, a BREW, a Phone and a PC by Smilmedia *TAG Editor 2.0 - G2 release by Digital Renaissance ??? *Tagfree 2000 SMIL Editor *Toolkit for MPEG-4 from IBM, creates MPEG-4 binary from content created in XMT-O (based on the SMIL 2.0 syntax and semantics). *TransTool - open source transcription tool *VeonStudio by Veon *Validator: SMIL 1.0, SMIL 2.0, SMIL 2.0 Basic and XHTML+SMIL by CWI. *3TMAN allows to easily author the complex multimedia projects and then can export the multimedia projects to the Html+time and/or SMIL formats Demos *SMIL 2.0 Feature-by-feature demos by RealNetworks *Torino and New York demos by Telecom Italia Lab *SMIL1.0, SMIL 2.0 demos available from Oratrix. *Synchronized Multimedia Summer School at INRIA *The Webnews demo, by CWI. (needs an HTML renderer) *Demos available from RealNetworks *SMIL 1.0 tutorial written in SMIL *SMIL1.0 demo of the Canyonlands *XHTML+SMIL demos, by Microsoft (works In > IE5.5 only) *XHTML+SMIL demos, by Patrick Schmitz (works In > IE5.5 only) *Demos of SMIL Animation used in combination with SVG at Burning Pixel and KevLinDev *Karaoke demo; SMIL version, you can directly test a Html+time version for IE6. An enhanced Karaoke demo.

SMIL documents

A SMIL document is similar in structure to an

document in that they are typically divided between an optional section and a required section. The section contains layout and metadata information. The section contains the timing information, and is generally composed of combinations of three main tags—sequential ("", simple playlists), parallel ("", multi-zone/multi-layer playback) and exclusive ("", event-triggered interrupts). 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 bandwidth requirements. For playback scheduling, SMIL supports ISO-8601 wallclock() date/time specification to define begin/end events for playlists. SMIL files take either a .smi or .smil file extension. However,

SAMI Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...

files and Macintosh self mounting images also use .smi, which creates some ambiguity at first glance. As a result, SMIL files commonly use the .smil file extension to avoid confusion.

Combination with other XML-based standards

SMIL was created during a time when structured data using XML was very popular and during a time when

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Windows line of operating systems (in ...

was very popular. Thus "combining" SMIL with other markup languages was considered one of the

best current practice A Best Current Practice (BCP) is a ''de facto'' level of performance in engineering and information technology. It is more flexible than a standard, since techniques and tools are continually evolving. The Internet Engineering Task Force publish ...

s of the day.

SMIL+SVG

SMIL is one of three means by which SVG animation can be achieved (the others being

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior, of ...

and CSS animations).

SMIL+RSS or other web syndication methods

While RSS and

Atom Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons. Every solid, liquid, gas, a ...

are

web syndication Web syndication is a form of syndication in which content is made available from one website to other sites. Most commonly, websites are made available to provide either summaries or full renditions of a website's recently added content. The term ...

methods, with the former being more popular as a syndication method for

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...

s, SMIL is potentially useful as a script or

playlist A playlist is a list of video or audio files that can be played back on a media player either sequentially or in a shuffled order. In its most general form, an audio playlist is simply a list of songs, but sometimes a loop. The term has sev ...

that can tie sequential pieces of multimedia together and can then be syndicated through RSS or Atom. In addition, the combination of multimedia-laden .smil files with RSS or Atom syndication would be useful for accessibility to audio-enabled podcasts by the

deaf Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition. In this context it is written ...

through Timed Text closed captions, and can also turn multimedia into hypermedia that can be hyperlinked to other linkable audio and video multimedia.

SMIL+VoiceXML and SMIL+MusicXML

VoiceXML can be combined with SMIL to provide a sequential reading of several pre-provided pages or slides in a

voice browser A voice browser is a software application that presents an interactive voice user interface to the user in a manner analogous to the functioning of a web browser interpreting Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). Dialog documents interpreted by voic ...

, while combining SMIL with

MusicXML MusicXML is an XML-based file format for representing Western musical notation. The format iopen fully documented, and can be freely used under the W3C Community Final Specification Agreement. History MusicXML was invented by Michael Good and in ...

would allow for the creation of infinitely-recombinable sequences of music sheets. Combining SMIL+VoiceXML or SMIL+MusicXML with RSS or Atom could be useful in the creation of an audible pseudo-podcast with embedded hyperlinks, while combining SMIL+SVG with VoiceXML and/or MusicXML would be useful in the creation of an automatically audio-enabled

vector graphics Vector graphics is a form of computer graphics in which visual images are created directly from geometric shapes defined on a Cartesian plane, such as points, lines, curves and polygons. The associated mechanisms may include vector display ...

animation Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most ani ...

with embedded hyperlinks.

SMIL+TEI

SMIL is anticipated for use within

Text Encoding Initiative The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) is a text-centric community of practice in the academic field of digital humanities, operating continuously since the 1980s. The community currently runs a mailing list, meetings and conference series, and main ...

(TEI) documents.

Status of SMIL

SMIL is being implemented on handheld and mobile devices and has also spawned the

Multimedia Messaging Service Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is a standard way to send messages that include multimedia content to and from a mobile phone over a cellular network. Users and providers may refer to such a message as a PXT, a picture message, or a multimedia ...

(MMS) which is a video and picture equivalent of

Short Message Service Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short tex ...

(SMS). SMIL is also one of the underlying technologies used for "

Advanced Content Advanced Content provides interactivity in the HD DVD optical disc format. Advanced Content is used to provide interactive menus and "special features" such as additional bonus/extras content and games for HD DVD (one of the high-definition vide ...

" in the (discontinued)

HD DVD HD DVD (short for High Definition Digital Versatile Disc) is an obsolete high-density optical disc format for storing data and playback of high-definition video. Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the ...

format for adding interactive content (menus etc.). The field of

Digital Signage Digital signage is a segment of electronic signage. Digital displays use technologies such as LCD, LED, projection and e-paper to display digital images, video, web pages, weather data, restaurant menus, or text. They can be found in publ ...

is embracing SMIL as a means of controlling dynamic advertising in public areas.

SMIL players

Software

Most commonly used

web browsers A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

have native support for SMIL, but it has not been implemented in Microsoft browsers. It was to be deprecated in Google Chrome, but it has now been decided to suspend that intent until alternatives are sufficiently developed. Other software that implement SMIL playback include: *

Adobe Media Player Adobe Media Player is a discontinued desktop media player that allowed users to manage and interact with their media content, and allowed content publishers to define branding and advertising in and around their content. The Adobe Media Player wa ...

* Amarok * Garlic Player *

Helix Player Helix DNA is a project to produce computer software that can play audio and video media in various formats and aid in producing such media. It is intended as a largely free and open-source digital media framework that runs on numerous operating ...

QuickTime QuickTime is an extensible multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. Created in 1991, the latest Mac version, QuickTime X, is a ...

Player * RealPlayer *

Totem A totem (from oj, ᑑᑌᒼ, italics=no or '' doodem'') is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage, or tribe, such as in the Anishinaabe clan system. While ''the ...

Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP) is the first media player and media library application that was developed by Microsoft for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as ...

(Playlist Files) * Zune (Playlist Files)

Hardware

* IAdea XMP-300 media player * IAdea XMP-7300 media player (with limitations) * Planar MP70 media player (with limitations) * SpinetiX HMP400 / HMP350 / HMP300 Hyper Media Player (SMIL 3.0 support) * Thomson/Grass Valley MediaEdge-3 player * ViewSonic NMP-550 media player * ViewSonic EP1020r wireless display+player (supporting a subset of SMIL) * Innes DMC200 media player * Innes DME204 media player with HD H264 encoder embedded Media player boxes based on dedicated 1080p decoder chips such as the Sigma Designs 8634 processor are getting SMIL players embedded in them.

Embedding SMIL files into XHTML web pages

A SMIL file must be embedded, then opened using a plug-in such as Apple's QuickTime or Microsoft's Windows Media Player, to be viewed by a browser that doesn't support SMIL.

Sources

References

External links

W3C's SMIL Web Site

SMIL 3.0 (W3C Recommendation)
{{Authority control Markup languages World Wide Web Consortium standards XML-based standards Subtitle file formats Computer file formats Declarative markup languages Playlist markup languages XML-based programming languages Declarative programming languages Open formats Computer-related introductions in 1999