The CWI SMIL Page

SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language, pronounced "smile") is a language for describing interactive synchronized multimedia distributed on the Web. It is an easy-to-author XML-compliant format similar in syntax to HTML. SMIL 2.0 became an official W3C recommendation on in August of 2001. SMIL provides Web users with:

• Easily-defined basic timing relationships
• Fine-tuned synchronization
• Spatial layout
• Direct inclusion of non-text and non-image media
• Hyperlink support for time-based media
• Adaptiveness to varying user and system characteristics.

SMIL Pages

• W3C SMIL 2.0 Recommendation (SMIL 1.0)
• CWI's SMIL Tutorial
• CWI SMIL validator
• W3C Audio, Video, and Synchronized Multimedia Page
• JustSMIL, an independent source of SMIL information.
• Dutch: SMIL link page (smil.pagina.nl)
• RealNetworks SMIL Resource Page
• Browsing the SMIL DTD, the CWI SMIL DTD pages generated using the DTD2HTML tool.
• Opera Research Group SMIL Press Release Page
• Sausage Software - SuperToolz - SMIL SuperTool information
• Article on SMIL in Internet World
• SMIL tutorial on Developer.com.
• Concordia University SMIL page
• SMIL page at CNET Builder.com.

SMIL Examples

• Island For Sale
• The Euro Notes Show
• Greetings for the New Year
• The CWI Webnews demo
• Fiets, featuring: Amsterdam Facades (images and data provided by the City of Amsterdam)

Publications about SMIL

• "SMIL 2.0, Part 1: Overview, Concepts, and Structure" by Dick C.A. Bulterman, IEEE Multimedia, October-December 2001
• "SMIL 2.0: XML For Web Multimedia" by Lloyd Rutledge, IEEE Internet Computing, September/October 2001
• "An integrated environment for the presentation of consistent SMIL 2.0 documents" by P.N.M. Sampaio, et.al., Document Engineering 2001
• "Improving Media Fragment Integration in Emerging Web Formats" by Lloyd Rutledge and Patrick Schmitz, Multimedia Modeling 2001
• "Streaming Technology in 3G Mobile Communication Systems" by Ingo Elsen, et.al., IEEE Computer, September 2001

The GRiNS SMIL Player and Authoring Environment

Oratrix, a CWI spin-off company, has developed a player and authoring environment for SMIL called GRiNS. See GRiNS for more information.

SMIL at CWI

CWI (Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica) is the National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science in the Netherlands. The Multimedia and Human-Computer Interaction Theme (INS2) within CWI researches synchronized multimedia and its adaptability to user needs. Members of this theme were active contributors to the development of SMIL.