SMIL is an XML-based language that allows content creators and providers to mix and synchronize multimedia presentations over the Internet. By way of example, this capability now enables QuickTime developers to incorporate advertising clips into stored and live streams of QuickTime movies.
SMIL, a text-based format, describes the temporal and spatial layouts of media clips within media presentations. It also allows the optional specification of click-through URLs (hyperlinks) for each clip. Because SMIL elegantly describes simple sequences and because it uses a familiar HTML-like syntax for specifying hyperlinks, it is ideal for the purpose of advertising insertion. >
Note
The complete SMIL specification is available at <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-smil/>. >
QuickTime 4. 1 provides SMIL support for >
Using the SMIL capability provided in QuickTime 4.1, you can generate a SMIL document that will trigger an advertising sequence of audio, video, animated GIFs, or streamed QuickTime movies to play. You can also define the content of the sequence dynamically. This capability is similar to a playlist, but unlike playlists, you can specify the spatial and temporal characteristics of the sequence.
An ad can be an audio clip, a video clip, an animated GIF, a fast-start QuickTime movie, or a streamed movie. Any media type that QuickTime can import is allowable as an ad. A sequence of media content, including ads and either the stored or live stream, is described within a SMIL document.>
Playback and performance of media clips are designed to be as smooth as possible. Whenever there is sufficient network bandwidth to handle the requirements of the content used, transitions between different clips (ads and content) are seamless. QuickTime delays opening the connection to the ad on the server until as late as possible before displaying the ad, so that servers can reliably count the hits on a particular ad.>
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