SMIL makes Web applications multimodal

Over the past few years, programmers have used proprietary authoring tools and file formats (such as Macromedia's Director) to develop multimedia applications for desktop computers. They have used CD-ROM disks and, more recently, DVD disks to distribute these applications that mix text, graphics, audio, and video content. Today, the World Wide Web competes with CD-ROMs and DVDs to distribute multimedia applications. Engineers and artists prefer the Web over disk-based applications, because it lets them collaborate in building intelligent systems that can extract or present distributed multimedia information. Until recently, however, Web technology limited the quality of multimedia presentations. HTML let application designers use only a very small set of graphical user interface widgets, such as radio buttons and drop-down lists, and did not let them mix and layer multimedia on the same page. Bandwidth considerations also limited the possible quality and size of audio and video information to what would transmit without degradation. XML and SMIL have been developed to solve these problems.