Synchronized Multimedia On The Web
Synchronized Multimedia On The Web (Web Techniques, Sep 1998)
SMIL, while it offers many of the capabilities of existing multimedia environments like QuickTime, is not meant to be a replacement for these technologies. Rather, it’s a kind of universal glue for joining all kinds of different formats and types of media in interesting and useful ways. RealNetworks intends its G2 RealPlayer to be a universal player. Its architecture allows for third-party developers to add renderers for new media types, which is how support was added for MPEG1, VRML, and MIDI, for example. Over the coming months and years, the maturation of both SMIL and the G2 RealPlayer may offer the most compelling opportunity yet for “convergence” between home entertainment and computer technologies.
