It seems like every multimedia site looks the same these days. Take
band sites: They all have downloadable MP3s, some "live in concert"
pictures, links to various other websites and, of
course, the all-important "buy the CD here" link. But we all know that if
visitors don't find something unique or unusually appealing about your
site, and find it soon, they'll click away.
In an attempt to get those band fans to stick around, an increasing
number of sites are infusing their pages with more titillating elements
like Flash, which can offer some tasty eye candy and even
interactivity (and doesn't beef up the load time too dramatically). But as
Flash becomes de rigueur, multimedia site builders will need to find a new
way to separate themselves from the pack. Enter SMIL.
SMIL, or synchronized multimedia integration language, is an XML-based
language that essentially pieces together your media files in the order
that you would like them to appear and combines them into a single stream
(for a nitty grittier explanation, check out the spec).
RealNetworks has been a pioneer in developing SMIL for the Web, and has
created proprietary formats for use within a SMIL script. These are
RealText (.rt), RealPix (.rp), RealVideo, RealAudio (.rm), and RealFlash. By
incorporating SMIL scripts into your RealMedia files, you'll give your site
a whole new level of usability.
You may be happy with the current content on your page and are saying, "I
use MP3 now, why should I use SMIL instead?" When you encode audio into the
MP3 format using the standard 44.1 kHz sampling rate, the general output is
around 1 Mb per minute of music. That is a lot of bytes to download if your
users have a 56k modem connection. By using SMIL, your content is streamed
to the user. This gives them instant gratification, and they'll have more
time to surf around the rest of your site now that they aren't waiting for
an MP3 to download.
Maybe your band just finished shooting your latest music video, and you'd
like to put it up on your site. Movie files are very megabyte intensive,
even more than MP3's. By using SMIL you can synchronize your video and the
accompanying music seamlessly. If you've been making .mov files available to
the public, they'll enjoy a SMIL presentation much more because they won't
have to wait for the file to get enough data to start playing. Now that your
visitors know what you sound like and are in love with your lead singer,
maybe they'll buy your CD or join your mailing list.
But wait, there's more. Maybe you'd like to offer a slideshow of pictures
that cycles while the
audio plays? How about giving users the ability to listen to clips from an
entire album without having to open separate browser windows or
download MB-heavy files? This can all be incorporated within the SMIL
script.
If you're the kind of designer who finds the idea of writing computer
scripts about as exciting as watching a cow chew cud (like I am), you're in
luck. SMIL is a lot like HTML, so if you have any experience building Web
pages, you won't have much trouble creating complex presentations
(presentations that would involve JavaScript programming if you opted to do
them in Flash). Plus, you can integrate Flash into your SMIL script (your
users, however, must have RealPlayer G2 to view anything made with Flash 3
or 4), which is handy for Flash presentations that require a large amount
of audio.
The more you use SMIL, the more you will want to learn about it. By the
time you become a pro at SMIL, version 2.0 (named "SMIL Boston") should
be ready for use. SMIL Boston will have nine modules, each of
them giving you control of the semantically-related elements,
properties, and attributes. For more information on SMIL Boston, take a look
at
the W3C
specifications and working draft.
I've told you why you should use SMIL, but don't take my word for it,
take a look at a demonstration to get a better idea of its application. Now that your
interest is piqued, it's time I fill you in on the few disadvatages to the
language. Any user who does not have a G2 version of RealPlayer installed will
recieve an error message asking for them to update the plug-in. Those
visitors looking for music to download may be disappointed, as RealMedia
files cannot be saved to your users' desktops. If these drawbacks are a
great concern to you, but you would like to use SMIL on your site, an easy
solution would be to offer MP3s along side your SMIL presentations. Now that
we've cleared up the pros and cons of SMIL, let's explain the language a
little more and dig into some code.
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