RSSSilverlight 3 officially launches with smooth streaming, offline apps
By Tim Conneally | Published July 10, 2009, 3:30 PM
After going live just a little bit early, Silverlight 3 is now an official release. The third iteration of Microsoft's rich internet application platform largely viewed as the chief competitor to Adobe Flash (but really an AIR rival) was officially launched this morning at a Microsoft event in San Francisco alongside Expression 3, the latest version of the company's design and development studio.
In the short time that it has been around, Microsoft said today that nearly one-third of all Internet-enabled devices have Silverlight 2 installed, and today's launch ushered in several new big-name customers. NBC Sports, for example, which used Silverlight to stream the Beijing Summer Olympics, will not only use Silverlight for the 2010 Winter Olympics as was previously expected, but for all of its online video moving forward.
NBC Universal and the rest of the companies using Silverlight will be able to capitalize on the latest developments to the platform, which Microsoft premiered incrementally this year after Silverlight 3 was released in beta at MIX 09 in March.
Smooth Streaming, for example, is Silverlight 3's ability to provide variable streams up to 1080p based upon the seamless detection of the user's connection speed and CPU power. A user's conditions are determined so that a feed can be set up that will not buffer or stutter in mid-stream. This feature is enabled when Silverlight 3 is combined with IIS 7.0 Media Services.
Silverlight 3 offers an improved audiovisual experience overall, with better 3D rendering and animation, higher resolution video, and MPEG 4-based H.264/AAC audio.
The feature known as "Out-of-Browser" is the ability for Silverlight 3 apps to run outside of the browser window without any additional plug-ins, and without necessarily needing an Internet connection.
The only thing that forces me to use silverlight is some live streaming DRM'ed stuff here and there anyway, so for as far as i'm concerned silverlight is still irrelevant.
http://ezinearticles.com/?id=2544517
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|This site has good information. i want to more knowledge about the software. Thanks
http://ezinearticles.com/?id=2513600
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|Wow...that is really fantastics news.Would love to read a little more of this. Great post.
http://ezinearticles.com...perience&id=2555245
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|I dont want Microsoft to create yet another 'by design' giant loophole in my OS.. I'm *NOT* installing Silverlight 3.0
The only thing that forces me to use silverlight is some live streaming DRM'ed stuff here and there anyway, so for as far as i'm concerned silverlight is still irrelevant.
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|and flash/adobe air are different from microsoft silverlight how? what their name/brand are different... stfu and think a little
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|One main difference between Silverlight and AIR/Flash Player security wise is that Microsoft has a schedule of updates and occassionaly updates more than once a month, while Adobe can take forever to patch up security holes. I'd prefer Silverlight for security, personally.
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|Read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/...erlight#Silverlight_3.0 how huge this update is. Pluggable media support and ClearType are my favorite features!
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|"The feature known as "Out-of-Browser" is the ability for Silverlight 3 apps to run outside of the browser window without any additional plug-ins, and without necessarily needing an Internet connection."
It should be noted that the "application" is still sandboxed....
In related "news", Moonlight, the Novell funded, Microsoft backed, Linux port is already up to speed with Silverlight 3.0, offering OggVorbis, Theora, and Dirac.
Linky! [tirania.org]
The H.264/Theora bit still hangs ominously (just like it does in the HTML5 spec), but hopefully licensing for H.264 doesn't turn out to be a huge issue.
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