Fluition creates presentations that are viewed using a Player. Fluition creates SMIL (.SMIL) files and therefore the Player you wish to use must be capable of playing SMIL files.
The 2 most popular SMIL compatible Players are RealPlayer from RealNetworks (www.real.com) and QuickTime from Apple (www.apple.com/quicktime). Both are excellent Players and both are free for download from their respective web sites.
The term streaming, loosely defined, generally refers to media, such as video and audio being delivered over a network or more narrowly media delivered over the Internet to personal computers in real time as opposed to downloading. Streaming requires that media components are small enough in file size to be delivered over a network and play properly on a personal computer.
To achieve these smaller file types Players use encoded video and audio files that have been compressed in order to stream. RealPlayer uses RealSystem files and QuickTime uses QuickTime files. In order to achieve a successful streaming media experience video and audio files should be encoded for the delivery method you decide to use.
If your final presentation is intended for CD-ROM or will be played locally (on the same computer on which the files are stored) then streaming media file type considerations might not concern your project.
For instance, a SMIL presentation can be created in Fluition using a .avi file and played in RealPlayer. However, at this point in time, the presentation will not stream.
Fluition comes bundled with RealProducer on the install CD-ROM. RealProducer will encode your video and audio files (including .avi files) to allow you to stream your presentation. For more information on QuickTime streaming and/or encoding visit www.apple.com/quicktime .
There are many products now, both hardware and software, that will help you encode your video and audio files for streaming. Encoding your media files is an important step in designing superior streaming media presentations.
Fluition comes bundled with RealPlayer from RealNetworks in order to let you start creating and viewing the presentations you have created with Fluition. Fluition for Windows comes with a built-in RealPlayer for internal previewing directly within Fluition.
RealPlayer also offers some extensions for adding player controls within presentations. These tags are added to the Link field in the Clip Library or the URL field in the Anchors Window. They provide links to either jump into a specified time value within the presentation or offer player controls such as pause, play, and stop to allow you to create your own control panel within the presentation. There controls are particularly handy when you are imbedding your presentation into a web page. (For more information about embedding RealPlayer into a web page, visit www.real.com)
RealPlayer extensions include:
command:seek (00:00:00)
The command:seek extension jumps to the time value within the presentation.
command:play
The command:play extension acts the same as pressing the play button on RealPlayer.
command:pause
The command:pause extension acts the same as pressing the pause button on RealPlayer.
command:stop
The command:stop extension acts the same as pressing the stop button on RealPlayer
Your SMIL presentations can use any media elements that QuickTime can play, including still images, audio, text, QuickTime movies, sprite animations, live streams, VR panoramas and VR object movies.
Although SMIL is a W3C recommended standard, there are some differences in how SMIL players interpret SMIL code. When creating SMIL presentations for QuickTime, it is important to understand these differences to ensure the best compatibility. SMIL is best supported by QuickTime 5 or higher.
QuickTime handles the Duration attribute differently from SMIL for RealPlayer. In order to add a Duration to a clip that is intended for playback in QuickTime (Fluition for Macintosh only) the following steps must be observed:
1. Make sure the file is a supported type (e.g. use .mov files for video instead of .rm)
2. Instead of using the Duration field in the Clip Library in Fluition, leave the Duration field blank (this will ensure that the SMIL code created does not contain any information that the QuickTime player will misinterpret)
3. To put a Duration into a clip intended for QuickTime, enter the following text into the Extra Code field in the Clip Library for that clip and click Apply:
dur="HH:MM:SS" (where HH:MM:SS is the desired time value)
4. Make sure you have selected QuickTime as your preview player program in the Preferences window (Edit>Preferences).
Fluition will preview the presentation using QuickTime in the same way that RealPlayer presentations are previewed.
For more information on using QuickTime with Fluition visit www.apple.com/quicktime/authoring/qtsmil.html for an excellent guide to using SMIL and QuickTime. The above referenced web page will also give you access to QuickTime specific extensions in order to customize your presentation for QuickTime.
Note: For more know issues with regards to differences in authoring for different Players check the Frequently Asked Questions section on the Support pages at www.fluition.com