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Introduction

RealOne Player™ gives you the power to deliver compelling multimedia presentations over a network. This production guide will help you produce any multimedia presentation, whether it is a simple video on your home page or a multimedia extravaganza.

Tip: To experience the many possibilities of streaming media, download RealOne Player from http://www.real.com, and then visit http://realguide.real.com.

What is Helix?

Helix from RealNetworks is a universal digital media delivery platform. With industry-leading performance, integrated content distribution, advertising, user authentication, Web services support, and native delivery of RealMedia, Windows Media, QuickTime, and MPEG-4, Helix from RealNetworks is a robust digital media foundation that meets the needs of enterprises and networking service providers.

What This Guide Covers

This production guide tells you how to create a RealOne Player presentation. Although it provides many tips for producing streaming media, the more you know about producing audio, video, and graphics in general, the faster you will be able to create a great streaming presentation. Topics in this guide fall into four general areas:

Because this guide concerns streaming media production and the RealOne Player core clip types, it does not cover the following topics:

How this Guide Is Organized

Part I: Getting Started with Streaming Media

Whether you are new to streaming media, or an old hand, be sure to read the following chapters.

Chapter 1: New Features

If you're familiar with previous versions of RealNetworks software, this chapter will give you a quick update on the many changes in this version.

Chapter 2: Presentation Planning

If you are new to streaming media, this chapter walks you through the steps involved in putting together a RealOne Player presentation, explaining bandwidth and timeline issues.

Part II: Producing Clips

The clip is the basic unit of a streaming media presentation. The following chapters explain production issues for core RealOne Player clip types.

Chapter 3: Audio Production

This chapter gives you the background you need to create a RealAudio clip. It then provides pointers on capturing and digitizing high-quality audio clips.

Chapter 4: Video Production

Read this chapter to learn how to capture high-quality video content and optimize it for conversion to streaming RealVideo clips.

Chapter 5: Flash Animation

Using Macromedia's Flash, you can produce dazzling animated presentations. This chapter explains how to stream Flash clips to RealOne Player.

Part III: Writing Markup

Using RealNetworks markup languages, you can create additional types of streaming clips.

Chapter 6: RealText Markup

With RealText, you can create text that displays at different times in your presentation. This is a great way to provide video credits and subtitles, for example.

Chapter 7: RealPix Markup

RealPix allows you to coordinate still images into streaming slideshows. When accompanied by an audio soundtrack, RealPix presentations make a great alternative to video.

Part IV: Learning SMIL

SMIL is the heart of streaming media, letting you pull together simple or highly complex presentations. Read the following chapters to get started.

Chapter 8: SMIL Basics

After you create your multimedia clips, you write a SMIL file that pulls the entire presentation together. This chapter explains the basic structure and syntax of a SMIL file.

Chapter 9: Clip Source Tags

This chapter explains how to add clips to a SMIL presentation, explaining the various streaming and download protocols, such as RTSP and HTTP.

Part V: Organizing a Presentation

When you stream multiple clips, you use SMIL to group your clips and lay out the presentation. The following chapters explain how to organize your media.

Chapter 10: Presentation Information

This chapter demonstrates how to add presentation information to a SMIL file to enhance the playback experience and aid viewer accessibility.

Chapter 11: Groups

This chapter shows you how to make clips play together or in a sequence. Creating groups is the most basic way to set up a SMIL timeline.

Chapter 12: Layout

When clips play in parallel, you create a layout as described in this chapter. You can even make new clips pop up in new windows.

Part VI: Timing and Linking Clips

Unlike a static Web page, streaming media flows. Timing is a key aspect of SMIL, and the following chapters explain how to create a timeline, as well as how to link to other resources.

Chapter 13: Basic Timing

The SMIL timing commands give you a powerful means to coordinate clip playback. Read this chapter to learn the basics of how to use SMIL to modify a presentation's timeline.

Chapter 14: Advanced Timing

Once you've mastered the basics of SMIL timing as described in Chapter 13, you're ready to learn about the advanced SMIL timing features described here.

Chapter 15: Hyperlinks

Refer to this chapter to learn how SMIL's hyperlinking capabilities let you launch new clips or presentations.

Part VII: Mastering Advanced Features

SMIL is a powerful language that lets you add special effects to your presentation. You can also use SMIL to manage bandwidth, and stream different clips to different viewers.

Chapter 16: Transition Effects

SMIL provides over a hundred special effects you can use when a clip starts or stops playback. This chapter shows you how to create eye-catching transitions.

Chapter 17: Animations

Read this chapter to learn how to use SMIL animations (not to be confused with Flash animation) to create special effects while clips play.

Chapter 18: Switching

SMIL lets you stream different presentations based on viewer criteria, such as available bandwidth or language preference. Read this chapter to learn about SMIL's switching capabilities.

Chapter 19: Prefetching

Prefetching is a powerful feature that lets you download clip data before a clip plays. This can help prevent presentation rebuffering.

Part VIII: Streaming Your Presentations

When you finish production, you're ready to make your presentation available for viewing as described in the following chapters.

Chapter 20: Web Page Embedding

If you want to integrate your presentation seamlessly into your Web page, follow the instructions in this chapter.

Chapter 21: Presentation Delivery

This chapter gives instructions for moving your streaming clips to Helix Universal Server and linking your Web page to them through a Ram file. It also explains how to use a Web server to deliver simple presentations.

Part IX: Basic Information

The following appendixes gather useful information that will help you whether you're a novice or a professional.

Appendix A: Basic Questions

If you are new to streaming media, this appendix answers basic production questions and points you to additional resources on the Internet.

Appendix B: Production Tasks

Consult this appendix when you want to carry out a specific production task, but don't know where to find the answer in this guide.

Appendix C: Color Values

This appendix covers the types of color values that you can use with SMIL, RealText, and RealPix attributes.

Part X: Syntax Summaries

The remaining appendixes summarize the markup languages used with RealOne Player.

Appendix D: SMIL Tag Summary

Once you understand SMIL, use this appendix as a reference for SMIL 2.0 tag and attribute values.

Appendix E: RealText Tag Summary

This appendix summarizes RealText markup, which is explained in Chapter 6.

Appendix F: RealPix Tag Summary

Refer to this appendix for quick information on RealPix markup, which is explained in Chapter 7.

Appendix G: Ram File Summary

Use this appendix as a quick reference to the Ram file parameters described in Chapter 21.

Appendix H: File Type Summary

This appendix provides a quick reference for common file types used in RealOne Player streaming.

Appendix I: Language Codes

If you create streaming clips in different languages as described in Chapter 18, you use these codes in your SMIL file to indicate the language choices.

How to Download This Guide to Your Computer

RealNetworks makes this guide available in the following formats for download to your computer:

All of the online versions of this guide are available for individual download from RealNetworks' Technical Support Web site at:

http://service.real.com/help/library/encoders.html

Conventions Used in this Guide

The following table explains the typographical conventions used in this production guide.

Notational Conventions
Convention Meaning
emphasis Bold text is used for in-line headings, user-interface elements, URLs, and e-mail addresses.
terminology Italic text is used for technical terms being introduced, and to lend emphasis to generic English words or phrases.
syntax This font is used for fragments or complete lines of programming syntax (markup).
syntax emphasis Bold syntax character formatting is used for program names, and to emphasize specific syntax elements.
variables Italic syntax character formatting denotes variables within fragments or complete lines of syntax.
[options] Square brackets indicate values that you may or may not need to use. As a rule, when you use these optional values, you do not include the brackets themselves.
choice 1|choice 2 Vertical lines, or "pipes," separate values you can choose between.
... Ellipses indicate nonessential information omitted from examples.

Additional Resources

Most RealNetworks® manuals are available in both PDF and HTML formats from the RealNetworks documentation library. The library's main page is at http://service.real.com/help/library/index.html. In addition to this production guide, you may need the following resources:

Technical Support

To reach RealNetworks' Technical Support, please fill out the form at:

The information you provide in this form will help Technical Support personnel respond promptly.

For More Information: Choose Help Page from the pull-down menu for additional information about obtaining assistance.


RealNetworks, Inc. ©2002 RealNetworks, Inc. All rights reserved.
For more information, visit RealNetworks
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