Macromedia Flash Lite 1.1 and Mobile SVG-T

Introduction

This article provides an overview of the reasons why Macromedia is supporting Mobile SVG-T as an additional component and what this means for handset manufacturers, Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs), and mobile operators. This article helps you understand the high-level fundamentals of both formats and why you might want to use each technology.

Flash Lite with SVG-T

The Macromedia Flash Lite 1.1 interactive multimedia presentation engine supports Mobile SVG-T (Tiny) playback in addition to its native Flash content. Mobile SVG-T is a mobile profile of the open standard–based Scalable Vector Graphic (SVG) format as defined by the World Wide Web consortium (W3C) and supported by the 3GPP organization within Europe.

The core Flash Lite 1.1 with SVG-T engine for handsets has already been licensed by operators, handset manufacturers, and ODMs across the world. It answered their needs for basic capabilities offered by open standards, as well as the more advanced and comprehensive feature set and rich interactive multimedia possibilities offered by the Flash Lite 1.1 profile and the associated Macromedia authoring tools.

Macromedia has listened carefully to its partners in the handset manufacturer and operator space. They communicated a strong message: Reduce the number of core engines on the phone itself and streamline the number of vendors within the supply chain. By supporting Mobile SVG-T in Flash Lite 1.1, Macromedia helps handset manufacturers simplify their technical implementations by:

• Removing the need for two vector graphic engines on the same terminal by taking advantage of economies of resource by lowering overall code size and reducing bill of material (BOM) costs
• Reducing the porting efforts required by having two code bases
• Removing the need for multiple player integration efforts into other terminal applications
• Streamlining the supply-chain relationships to reduce the costs associated with multiple vendor relationships

From a hardware perspective, Flash Lite with SVG-T can be seen as a core presentation layer that sits on the phone and can drive a number of different and complementary applications on the terminal. Manufacturers can use one engine for rich multimedia content within the Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) client, rich browsing of content, user interfaces, wallpapers, screen savers, ring tones, or the presentation for any application. Flash Lite achieves this integration through a standard, well-defined API, enabling a terminal manufacturer to integrate the Flash Lite engine into any terminal application.

One primary reason for supporting the SVG-T format in addition to the standard Flash Lite 1.1 format is to reduce the need for two separate rendering engines on the terminal. Using the Flash Lite 1.1 with SVG-T SDK, which is provided to handset manufacturers, reduces the BOM costs as well as the development time and skills needed to integrate multiple vector graphic engines on one handset or multiple handsets. In doing so, handsets can now support the basic needs of vector graphics as defined in the SVG-T profile, as well as the richer interactive multimedia feature set Flash Lite 1.1 provides.

It is worth touching briefly on the differences between SVG-T and Flash Lite:

• SVG-T supports within its profile vector graphics, images, and text, but lacks the ability to add interactivity or audio without the use of additional auxiliary technologies such as JavaScript. One of the problems, however, is that there is no standardized way in which these auxiliary technologies are integrated and authored.
• Flash Lite 1.1 provides scripting, rich interactivity, and audio support, and only Flash developers, using the Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 authoring tool, are able to create next-generation mobile data services that are guaranteed to work across multiple handsets, platforms, and operator environments.

A True Platform

The Flash Lite SDK includes a comprehensive test suite that covers all of the functionality within the Flash Lite engine. This test suite, which comprises more than a thousand manual and automated tests, ensure that handsets adhere to and are 100% compatible with the Flash Lite 1.1 specification and lets developers ensure that their Flash Lite content plays back seamlessly across multiple phones.

Indeed, Macromedia developed this test suite because it had observed some of the issues that have arisen from the way in which other currently available execution environments, such as Java, interpret the data. Seeing the problems this has caused for developers, Macromedia decided to pursue a strategy that ensures Flash Lite–enabled phones do not ship until they do adhere to standards, passing a series of required tests and then a final verification by Macromedia. Through these requirements, Macromedia provides a common, standardized platform for developers to produce content across multiple handsets and platforms. Consequently, Macromedia also reduces development and testing costs dramatically and increases time-to-market.

Macromedia engineering has also developed a significant additional test suite for SVG-T interoperability for licensees of Flash Lite with SVG-T, adding further test scenarios and files to the official conformance test suite provided by the W3C. So while our player conforms to the SVG-T standard, other implementations from other vendors may differ, causing differences in supported features across handsets and vendor implementations. Further problems abound when additions not available in the SVG-T format (such as gradients) are made above and beyond the specification itself, causing further fragmentation and interoperability issues for content developers as well as manufacturers and operators.

For example, you can review the way in which different browsers render HTML, and the various headaches that were caused when there were significant differences between browser implementations and rendering techniques. By contrast, content developers could trust that a Flash movie will play back correctly in Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari on Apple Macintosh, Microsoft Windows, and Linux operating systems. This has made Flash a de-facto standard on the desktop. In the mobile environment, Flash Lite provides the same browser-independent platform, irrespective of the underlying application environment or mobile operating system.

Where to Use SVG-T and Flash Lite

It is worth pointing out where to use Flash Lite and SVG-T—and it all depends on the capabilities needed and the content available. For example, the SVG-T format does not support the ability to input text, server connectivity calls, embedded sound. Flash Lite, however, provides a common set of ActionScript commands to enable text input or connect to a server, which means news, stock tickers, or weather channels can be updated in real time using the LoadVariables or LoadMovie ActionScript commands.

Flash Lite 1.1 also supports core phone indicators such as battery life, GPRS connectivity, signal strength, time, date, and vibrate functions, all of which are not available with SVG-T.

Conclusion

Flash Lite 1.1 SVG-T support means that handset manufacturers now are able to support the full requirements of operators—by adhering to the open standard specified by 3rd Generation Partnership Projects (3GPP), while also being able to answer the specific requirements and needs of operators who want to provide next-generation, rich, interactive multimedia experiences on their handsets to drive up average revenue per user and average margin per user, as well as to reduce churn and increase customer satisfaction with the mobile experience.

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