Re: Streaming with SMIL?

Hi Laure !

The answer is very much player-dependent and codec-dependent, but yes:  
it is possible to stream SMIL media content.

A safe bet for streaming is:

- Ask your end-users to use the RealOne player (there is a free  
version).
<http://www.real.com>

- Distribute your media content using proprietary [.rm] codecs  
("real-video and real-audio"), and [.rt] format (real-text).
=> You will need converters to generate this format (usually not free).

- Deploy this content using a dedicated RTSP streaming server (rtsp://  
is the protocol that supports real streaming capabilities).
=> Usually not free either.

I am not really aware of another reliable method for implementing SMIL  
multimedia streaming.

Note 1: Given you are interested in media content delivery, you might  
want to check some specificities of the SMIL language  
(PrefetchControl):
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/REC-SMIL2-20051213/smil- 
content.html#ContentControlNS-PrefetchControl>

Note 2: You might want to check the Ambulant player to see if it  
supports streaming:
<http://www.cwi.nl/projects/Ambulant/distPlayer.html>

Note 3: some video/audio players are able to play some particular  
codecs "as it is downloaded" (.mov, .wmv), over the HTTP protocol.  
Although this works nicely in video/audio-only mode, my experience is  
that it doesn't work once the content is encapsulated in a SMIL  
presentation (e.g.: although RealOne is both a video/audio player and a  
SMIL player, it tends to behave totally differently in SMIL mode when  
playing video/audio content).

Hope that helps.
Kind regards, Daniel WECK.

On 14 Feb 2006, at 09:58, Laure moro wrote:
> Hello!
> My name is Laure and I am very interested in the applications of SMIL  
> in the multimedia world. I am specially interested in the streaming.  
> For example, if we want to send a smil presentation to several users  
> (by mail or another service) and we only send the SMIL file (not the  
> video and audio sources, that are supposed to be in the web), does the  
> user need to download the whole source files before playing? Or can  
> they be streamed? Or both solutions are possible? Is the streaming  
> allowed or does it depends on the player and the bandwidth connection?  
> I know that you can use smil to do a multimedia presentation with  
> several sources that can be in different servers, but I have been  
> looking for examples and I have only found applications where you have  
> a folder with the smil text all the sources.
> Thanks.
> Regards,
> Laure.