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Moonlight 1.0 Brings Silverlight Content To Linux
An anonymous reader writes "Novell has unveiled some of the fruits of its technical collaboration with Microsoft in the form of Moonlight 1.0, a Firefox plug-in which will allow Linux users to access Microsoft Silverlight content. Officially created by the Mono project, it is available for all Linux distributions, including openSUSE, SUSE Linux Enterprise, Fedora, Red Hat and Ubuntu. Also included in Moonlight is the Windows Media pack, with support for Windows Media Video, Windows Media Audio and MP3 files."
'[fake-coughing] Moonlight... so deadly... Choking... [laughs] Kidding! When I said "Firefox plug-in," the deadly was in massive sarcasm quotes. I could take a bath in this stuff, put it on cereal, rub it right into my eyes, honestly, it's not deadly at all. To me. You, on the other hand, are going to find its deadliness a lot less funny.
Moonlight is a neat project and Silverlight looks interesting, Flash works. But why can't an open, rich experience, open standards solution for building web sites emerge? Surely that would be better for web site developers and consumers.
OK I installed this. Now what? Any sites use this?
The poster boy for turncoats.
Microsoft wants to crush Flash, Novell is happy to oblige.
When those pundits said that one day Microsoft would go open source, I'm sure they didn't have this in mind.
It hurts my brain.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Something like this perhaps?
SVG + Video > Silverlight
And that's only the tip of the technological iceberg. Behold the power of HTML5. Coming to every web browser except Internet Explorer.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Because W3C standards have become functionally indistinguishable from articles on The Onion?
How we know is more important than what we know.
You mean like AJAX? The problem with AJAX is that some browser developers (read: MS) can't be bothered to implement standards. So we have to have the same browser developer develop Silverlight in order to fix a flaw caused by MS's negligence. Now, Silverlight will be better than AJAX for a few things (video streaming, more native-style applications), but then there is Flash for that.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Would this work with Netflix?
That seems to be the message Microsoft is sending.
Oh yes, will it run on my ARM processor (where Flash runs just fine)?
Does this "Windows media pack" contains "promise not to sue agreement" in them? Is moonlight an open source implementation? Are media pack codecs open source implementations, too? But even if all above answers are "yes", I'm still not entitled to use it as it uses ".net" as foundation. ".net" as foundation is M$'s ultimate dream of crushing the world!
just wonder why there are so many anonymous cowards in this world....
If Adobe is finally taking Linux seriously, it's because they are afraid of Microsoft. Best outcome we can have is Adobe and MS each taking a 50% share of this market. We'll reap the benefits, regardless of OS of choice.
Coming to every web browser except Internet Explorer.
Perhaps you missed the last Slashdot post?
I'm sorry, but this is severely misinformed. Silverlight is far more powerful than what you've vaguely described. I strongly encourage you to read about it and try to do something -- you'll notice the API is very rich, and it takes you very few LOCs to accomplish useful, fast, RIAs. (AC because defending an MS technology costs you karma)
The one word I was thinking of was "Meh."
Now to spend the next few minutes trying to work out whether that actually counts as a word...
From TFA:
Also included in Moonlight is the Windows Media pack, with support for Windows Media Video, Windows Media Audio and MP3 files.
Yes, I can just see the lines of linux users just queuing up in anxious trepidation waiting to be able to use Windows Media Video and Audio files on their beloved linux systems...
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
As far as MS is concerned they probably are.
I wouldn't be surprised if silverlight was created (which IE magically supports very well) to give non MS browsers something else to choke on.
Having a big share in the browser market gives you a loud voice as to what standards will or will not be followed by web publishers. Web publishers kowtowing just to keep IE happy keeps their support for other browsers to a minimum, surfers find IE more supported so they ditch competing browsers and the cycle is complete.
The funny thing about open standards...monopolies don't like them.
XmlHttpRequest, the 'X' in AJAX, started life as a Microsoft only, proprietary ActiveX object back in IE5.
Given that, your post doesn't really make sense.
Maybe not
Which post would that be? The one where Microsoft failed to implement DOM2 events, then implemented HTML5 features based on DOM2 events and therefore incompatible with the standards, therefore not HTML5?
Don't get me started. IE8 is a sore point for me. You WON'T appreciate what you hear. (Or maybe you will. But it won't be the most pleasant conversation.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Don't get me wrong, I think its cool that projects like this exist and I am not going to criticize anyone for spending time working on it.
But Silverlight really seems like a solution in search of a problem. Flash provides nice interactivity at the cost of an annoying plugin, and HTML5 is quickly catching up and should be the long term method of constructing web apps.
The only advantage of Silverlight seems to be the unified language for both backend and content, but that doesn't seem compelling to me. Anyone here using Silverlight for anything interesting that couldn't be done in Flash or HTML?
sheep.horse - does not contain information on sheep or horses.
The WebKit CSS extensions added in Mobile Safari are interesting. I wish for people to agree on a version of this for all browsers, as it would replace Flash in at least some areas.
http://webkit.org/blog/324/css-animation-2/
All I have to say is I can now watch MLB.tv in Linux without the freaking hassle I used to have. It's getting very close to the point of not having to dual boot much longer.
Clearly, you've never read a W3C standard. No-one likes them.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Why? It's just another M$ product that's full of bugs. How many of their patents are in it?
Well, even with this, I STILL can't watch anything on Netflix's "Watch It Now" section... because THAT requires Moonlight AND ActiveX (and I still had to forge my UA just to get that far).
We're no farther along than we were before.. as always.
Weird from someone with a "Javascript + Gaming = Amazing (PC & Wii)" signature.
Personally I much rather have an open-source silverlight to javascript layer in my browser than Adobes flash plugin.
I installed miro 2 and removed flash, though that will suck for plenty of sites :D
You are correct. I can't seem to find any references to DOM2 being included in IE8, while they tout the inclusion of HTML5 support...
I use Konqueror, btw.
It's not like you have to actually make use of them, but being able to is rather convenient ..
I do understand that a few may not see it as free enough though, but well, let the masochists worry about that.
[quote]
Officially created by the Mono project, it is available for all Linux distributions
[/quote]
Somehow I doubt this. Anyone care to test this on some long-abandoned decade-old distribution?
I see Microsoft have managed to sucker Novell into playing "eternal catchup" to their "its flash, but its not flash" technology. So now they just need to string Linux users along enough to make Silverlight a little more popular. After that, they can keep Linux users in their back pocket by simply witholding new release specifications on a whim.
Good job Novell. You are now even more Microsoft's bitch.
Sun could have owned this market, but Java was a piece of crap for multimedia and video applications, and so people dropped it. Instead of coming up with nice looking, robust, real-world solutions, Sun was busy building a platform designed by committee and with some of the world's most bloated and least tested APIs on it.
I got a bid in a gig for Silverlight, and, the thing is, Flash is actually a bit better for some of the special effects. I think its fair to say that Flash and Silverlight are designed to do two different things. Flash has more fancy graphics options, but, Silverlight is easier to assemble content dynamically with. You could go one of two routes with Silverlight. One way is to send out the binary blob ala Flash, but you can also just send out xml straight out to it.... that makes it a bit more like working with a normal web server paradigm. In that sense, you can view Silverlight as more of a stopgap to HTML5 than you would Flash.
This is my sig.
As it should (cost you karma). May your next life be spent working at a Windows ME help desk support center. (j/k, I wouldn't wish that on anyone.)
this is to try and have some form of control on the netbook market --> no windows, only linux
No Thanks.
You can't take the sky from me.
I don't see why. I love web standards. They open up platforms and make the Internet a better and more powerful place for all users. Microsoft's attempts to subvert those standards don't make me happy. Nor does Miguel's backwards attempts at bringing Microsoft technology to Linux.
Microsoft technology was once at the top of its field. While Microsoft lied, stole, and crushed to get there, at least it really was superior to the alternatives. Now they're instead planting their either ancient or useless alternative technology in the way of progress in an attempt to bar the industry from moving forward. I cannot agree with that. I cannot allow that. I will not support Microsoft until their ACTIONS match what their high words about standards support.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I think this is another "meh" considering Windows Media and MP3 formats are both taken care of by gstreamer plugins, w32(64)codecs and other codec packs avaliable in various repo's. Though I must admit Moonlight crashes my firefox less than Flash.
Make SELinux enforcing again!
But do you want to pay attention to someone so stupid that they locked their message inside an overly complex bottle? If they're making such a mistake with their front door, do you want to trust that their floors will support you?
On the media side, check out:
http://www.smoothhd.com/
I encoded the "Big Buck Bunny" clip up there :). It's still in pre-alpha, but you should be able to get the idea
This uses a new API called MediaStreamSource, which enables file parsers and protocols to be built in managed code, and then hand off the video and audio bitstreams to Silverlight's built int decoders.
In the case of Smooth Streaming, every two seconds of the video is a seperate http request, and each of those chunks is available in six different data rates. Managed code heuristics running inside of Silverlight dynamically pick the right bitrate for the next chunk based on available CPU power, network speed, and window size (no reason to download 720p if the brower window is shrunk down in a corner of the stream).
And because this is based around small http requests, chunks get proxy cached, so 100 people watching the same video behind the same firewall would only need to get a single copy, providing much better scalability than traditional unicast streaming.
Anyway, this is something that Flash certainly can't do, and I haven't seen any hint of HTML5 being able to do. Pulling it all together requires some pretty specific characteristics of the video decoder (the ability to switch resolutions with a new sequence header without any pause), an API like MediaStreamSource, and having a performant enough runtime to be able to run all the heuristics and parsing without using much CPU.
I blogged the authoring workflow for this and some other details here:
http://on10.net/blogs/benwagg/Expression-Encoder-2-Service-Pack-1-ndash-Intro-and-Multibitrate-Encoding/
My video compression blog
Those are train tracks you're standing on!
We all can bash silverlight, but but theres nothing wrong with it. Its a newer, and from what i've seen, more stable alternative to flash.
Yes. The Yiddish "Nu" also works.
Not a sentence!
I don't see anything in that demo that wasn't in Silverlight 1.0 demos a couple of years ago.
My video compression blog
Sorry if I'm a little edgy. I do mean that IE8 is a sore spot for me. Slowness to implement standards I can understand. Microsoft has an uphill battle with the Trident engine. But blatant disregard? Flaunting their non-implementation of standards? Closing bugs for standards support as "By Design"? That I cannot stomach.
Death to Microsoft. May the phoenix be a stronger company and a better citizen.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Behold the power of HTML5. Coming to every web browser except Internet Explorer.
And IE, too, as soon as someone writes a something to render SVG + video in Silverlight. :)
Tweet, tweet.
Moonshine runs Moonlight from inside a Firefox plugin to emulate the older Windows Media Player ActiveX embeds. It can also play back local WMV files.
http://abock.org/moonshine/
Which is good, as VLC and thus presumably ffmpeg hasn't been able to play VC-1 files with B-frames for years, which is pretty much the default these days.
My video compression blog
The interesting thing is that Moonlight downloads the codecs for you on demand (no need to add other repos) and they are properly licensed (as opposed to w32/w64codecs). I can see a lot of Linux users doing this, actually.
Since Ubuntu and Suse already ship Mono (or have drunk the MS kool-aid, depending on how you feel), they should include this plug-in by default so that it works out of the box.
Put identity in the browser.
Um, portions of Silverlight are public source and moonlight *is* OSS.
It may not be Richart Stallman perfect, but it works for even a jaded manager like me.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Keeping up with the microsoft tradition novell unleashes a much touted piece of software which really does not work. Typically inept.
Firefox 3.0.6 32 bit Intrepid
Randomly tried some different stuff from the microsoft showcase http://silverlight.net/Showcase/:
Lasercopter: Cannot work with 1.0 compiled for 2.0
autocosmos tv: Does not even detect the plugin
Meshviewer: Does not detect the plugin
Lorenzo Reca: Does not detect the plugin
Manic Miner: Does not detect the plugin
My teeth start gnashing and give up
And I don't see anything in Silverlight that isn't similarly addressed by HTML5. Ergo, HTML5 is superior for its standardization, true cross-platform support, and competing implementations that can meet the needs of many different ideals.
For the record, I don't have anything against people such as yourself who work at Microsoft. Many people who work there are great people. But from the inside looking out, you can't see the forest through the trees. You especially can't see the massive amount of harm and disrespect your company is paying the industry. And that harm is why I can't stand Microsoft anymore. Mr. Wilson can complain about negativity all he wants, but he refuses to recognize the trail of broken promises he and your company have given to the industry.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
though a neat demo, it really does little to show a powerful framework.
So video can be mapped into the background of and object, and it can move and resize. It can even be transparent, and the volume can be controlled.
It is great that it can be done, but if flash or Silverlight can't do the same, then they are seriously defunct.
I am hardly more impressed with the video you sent me, than the real time bandwidth in Tomato Firmware.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
And I don't see anything in Silverlight that isn't similarly addressed by HTML5. Ergo, HTML5 is superior for its standardization, true cross-platform support, and competing implementations that can meet the needs of many different ideals.
As I said elsewhere, HTML5 has no way to do anything like this:
http://www.smoothhd.com/
http://on10.net/blogs/benwagg/Expression-Encoder-2-Service-Pack-1-ndash-Intro-and-Multibitrate-Encoding/
As for cross-platform, Moonlight 2.0 should be able to run SmoothHD just fine, and more importantly a whole lot of content published using that platform.
My video compression blog
"Now they're instead planting their either ancient or useless alternative technology..."
Right, because Flash/Actionscript is light-years ahead of the WPF/C#/IronPython which is just !useless. OK. Or were you thinking JavaFX or Ajax/XHTML? Puhleaze.
Let's meet here in about 2 years and compare how many business internet/intranet apps are using your favorite tech or Silverlight.
Its just annoying that its hard/impoissible to find a foss version of moonlight. One say i will put the effort in and compile an ffmpeg version, but until then i have no intention of touching the microsoft codec pack.
It seams like something that could easily be packaged in a tar or deb by people who don't care about legal threats and then linked to by everybody (well apart from the shills that produce moonlight).
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Yes, I can just see the lines of linux users just queuing up in anxious trepidation waiting to be able to use Windows Media Video and Audio files on their beloved linux systems...
The day this article hit slashdot I said that the purpose for this was to insert Microsoft IP into Linux. People called me crazy. Well, we're here! Let's all get comfy in this brave new world, shall we?
Does anybody still trust Novell? Why?
Oh, and Windows Media Player is way cool, because it has the codecs for Plays For Now.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
This is exactly how microsoft operates to keep people from switching to alternative platforms (e.g. oss solutions)
they did it with WMV for ages until the pressure became too great.
now they're trying to do it with silverlight.
I find it a little too convenient that they release 2.0 the moment news arises of linux support for 1.0. As soon as they develop 2.0 for linux they'll upgrade to 3.0, and so on and so forth.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
The HBO example page they use works just fine with gecko-mediaplayer and mplayerplug-in, that Linux users have had for years.
The homosexuals would like you to retract your statement as such claims are quote, "making us look bad."
And I liked them. They let me do cool stuff in predictable ways. They're not flawless, but they vary from programming for IE in that they're documented. Documentation is a good thing. And they have a validator. External validation may be an emotional crutch but for my web pages, I like the help.
I like web pages that have a link that says this page looks awful.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Odd that this is just now breaking on Slashdot. According to the Mono project's Moonlight page, the final version of Moonlight 1.0 was released Jan. 20 -- just in time for Linux users to accept de Icaza's invitation to watch President Obama's inauguration over the Internet via Silverlight.
To answer somebody's earlier question, Moonlight 1.0 is licensed under LGPL.
Prevent Windows piracy. Use Linux instead.
And all you DRM fetish purists
"Ohhh, encrypt me stronger baby. More Secure, more secure! That's it! Ohhhhh..." ?
mu
I never apologize. I'm sorry, but that's just the way I am.
What? That was a nice segue attempt, but you're CAUGHT - your post has nothing to do with the one you're replying to, my karma-whoring friend.
if 80% of the browsers wont support it (IE) then its hardly a "standard", its more of a "wishlist".
Ahh, the old "you must work at MS" canard. I get it.
The fact is you rant and rave on every post you can about the same misinformed shit. See the guy who replied to you above - Silverlight is far beyond your vaunted HTML5. Why should MS be hobbled in providing something that's _far_ more powerful because you and your geeky dweeb friends decide they should follow "standards" created by competitors?
I'd like to watch movies from netflix
Ok, so you need this for Netflix.
Any other reasons why you'd want Silverlight?
Honestly, not trolling. Netflix is apparently one reason, and a good one. What are the others?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The premature ejaculators break it in days.
Dominatrix: "No, It's just a game we're supposed to play! Now gimme 50 bucks."
User: "What? That's it? It didn't even work last time!"
Start here. Proceed to this and this and this.
Any questions?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Do what exactly? Linking off to a site that requires Silverlight with no explanation doesn't seem like a very good argument when you're posting to a forum that doesn't want to install your plugin. (Or more to the point, many of them can't install Silverlight 2.0.)
Your second link talks about multi-bitrate encoding. Which strikes me as (like the entire Silverlight platform) a solution looking for a problem. Despite the fact that Microsoft has had the technology deployed for years as part of WiMP, the market hasn't bought into it. It's just as easy (and probably less confusing) to simply provide different sizes. 95%+ of current streaming videos don't even have to worry about that. The closest thing we have to an issue is Youtube using low quality as the default. And even that has more to do with backwards compatibility and paced rollouts than it does a strict technology problem.
Perhaps Silverlight will be better positioned when HD streaming becomes the norm. More likely however, is that HD will be the norm when the majority of hardware on the market is both capable of HD streaming and integrated into the standard home in a way that would make HD streaming a superior enough experience for consumers to want to use it. At which point the advantage of technologies like multi-bitrate streaming simply vaporize. Microsoft would do better to spend those resources on implementing the web standards they've been blatantly ignoring for the past decade.
As an aside, why is it that every Silverlight website stops you cold? There's not even a description of what it is you're missing and/or why you should install the plugin. It's simply "install this or go away". So I go away. No skin off my nose.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
How much accessibility is broken with Silverlight - last I checked, it and flash were still light years behind the standards for any functional solution in this regard.
Adobe's idea of a "solution" notwithstanding (workarounds and third party dependencies).
Um, portions of Silverlight are public source and moonlight *is* OSS.
It may not be Richart Stallman perfect, but it works for even a jaded manager like me.
This from the person who said Vista was faster than that bloated XP.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1024039&cid=25706211
I was curious to see what type of "jaded" manager would consider public source the same as open source so I checked your history.
You're good at hiding your "true" feelings because most your posts seem very pro-vista and critical of OSS (usually, though, with the disclaimer that you use such and such linux app. Reminds me of the Seinfield epdisode where the guy could make fun of everyone because he used to be whatever his target was too.)
It's not cross platform, it only runs on x86/x86-64, and to further break it down to not cross platform it's a binary distributed on SuSE, OpenSuSE, Ubuntu, and Fedora core 9.
That's not cross platform, that's available as a binary on various operating systems.
The term cross-platform is widely seen on the 'net as being either an open standard, or available as a source and able to be compiled on your choice of setup.
I know the term cross-platform was muddied in the past, but when it comes to the internet cross-platform doesn't really hold the muster of open standard.
Especially when it rotates around the existance (or the whim) of a company (e.g. Microsoft) to keep a heartbeat.
68.15% and accelerating.
At this point it looks like "corporate standards" are doing quite a bit to prop up IE's numbers. The good news is that those who finally move away from IE6 aren't all moving to IE7. Many of those users are switching to an alternative browser. Which means that Microsoft's lock-in is slipping fast.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
You guys must be getting pretty desperate. I bet "symbolset" is on the cork board on your way into work with a note that says "don't." And yet still you try. Ok, who has Apple partnered with and then knifed in the back? Anybody? Ever?
Start here. Proceed to this and this and this.
Now after you've clicked all that, do you feel like you've done a good job for your boss? Have you accomplished your goal? Did you give the freetards what for? Or do you feel like you've wasted an AC post on something you can't turn in for credit? Have you in fact harmed your employer? Do you think that maybe that's why the note is on the cork board?
Keep trying though. The guy that scores points on me in the blog center is going to be the Black Prince of Bangalore.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
If after reading all that you still don't care then I have no answer to "Why care?".
You've made your choice. Live with it. Have a nice worm.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Don't get me started. IE8 is a sore point for me. You WON'T appreciate what you hear. (Or maybe you will. But it won't be the most pleasant conversation.)
Well, if it's something to the effect that though for years, you've absolutely hated Internet Explorer 6's limitations and the fact that Microsoft all but abandoned its development, and during those years, while you put up with all its idiosyncracies you accumulated a metric ton of contempt for the company whose half-life might -- if all the issues were addressed today -- only have you wishing painful chronic illnesses on the IE product development team in 5 years, and that despite all that, you allowed yourself a glimmer of hope when you heard the Microsoft folks talking about how IE 8 would support web standards, only to discover that they're basically still planning on being 4-5 years behind everybody else while dumping a lot of effort into silverlight, but you weren't really surprised because honestly, if they had either the skill or will to keep up, they could have done it without breaking a sweat back when IE6 was actually briefly in the lead, and so your contempt, rather than diminishing, is actually pretty much cemented on a monotonically increasing curve which will eventually cause the cretins involved in IE's product development team to suffer debilitating effects proportional their proximity to you.... then by all means, do go on.
Tweet, tweet.
*yawn*
I stand by Vista being faster than expee. I also find it more intuitive.
As for the licensing - Here's the MS license for Silverlight: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=EB83ED4C-AC85-4DE9-8395-285628EE2254&displaylang=en
Moonlight is OSS - http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight#Licensing
Any further questions?
I'm honored that you reviewed my poasts.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Let's keep things in a non-proprietary format as much as possible KTHNX.
Ahh, the old "you must work at MS" canard. I get it.
Ben Waggoner does work at Microsoft...
I installed the plugin, but every silverlight demo site I go to just shows me the little "please install silverlight" message.
Haha .... NaaaaaNaaaaaaaa
Looks like M$ is drunk on their own MoonShine.
That's good ... every app that reduces M$'s sperm count reduces their corporate life-time and bank accounts.
Do what exactly? Linking off to a site that requires Silverlight with no explanation doesn't seem like a very good argument when you're posting to a forum that doesn't want to install your plugin. (Or more to the point, many of them can't install Silverlight 2.0.)
The second link is about how the stuff in the first is authored, and doesn't require Silverlight. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
Your second link talks about multi-bitrate encoding. Which strikes me as (like the entire Silverlight platform) a solution looking for a problem. Despite the fact that Microsoft has had the technology deployed for years as part of WiMP, the market hasn't bought into it. It's just as easy (and probably less confusing) to simply provide different sizes. 95%+ of current streaming videos don't even have to worry about that.
The challenge with offering multiple sizes is that in forces the user to know what their system and connection can play, and it really only works with progressive download models, not real instant-on, easy random access long-form "streaming." That's fine for some audiences, but not for the mass market. Multibitrate done right means nearly instant startup and gapless playback, dynamically adjusted to what the user's machine can play back. It's a very different use model than YouTube.
Perhaps Silverlight will be better positioned when HD streaming becomes the norm. More likely however, is that HD will be the norm when the majority of hardware on the market is both capable of HD streaming and integrated into the standard home in a way that would make HD streaming a superior enough experience for consumers to want to use it.
Ah, that's the point! Smooth Streamings gets us out of having to wait for everyoen to be able to do HD to use it for mass audience content. If only the top 40% of users can get full 720p, the top 40 % of users get full 720p. And users who have less get the best experience their hardware and network is capable off. We don't have to sweat the lowest common denominator.
As an aside, why is it that every Silverlight website stops you cold? There's not even a description of what it is you're missing and/or why you should install the plugin. It's simply "install this or go away". So I go away. No skin off my nose.
There's a lot of flexibility in how a site can present the install option. For example, NBCOlympics.com offered a fallback to an IE embedded WMP ActiveX component. I agree that more sites could do a nicer job of it, and we're talking to them about improving that experience.
My video compression blog
no. way. in. hell.
I haven't seen any good come out of this junk. Every time I want to watch something with some importance, I have to use Silverlight. I really get the feeling that the reason companies go with this tech is not because of application ubiquity, but because some jackass made a deal with Microsoft. Just give me Netflix and I'll be happy!
You're way behind. Microsoft has bought Novell body and soul. Nothing that comes out of that is useful. A tool is a tool, but we don't make our tools out of metals this weak.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Without knowing a thing about this project but from reading the summary:
*Firefox plug in. Could it be cross platform?
*Moonlight - can it be ported to windows and osx?
*Mono - can it be ported to windows and osx?
And nothing of value was gained.
I don't care about Silverlight or .NET, but it is nice to see Microsoft opening up a bit. Whether they "bought Novell" or not, they are still doing a lot more than Adobe to open up their platform.
Any pronounceable one or two letter combination followed by 'eh' is officially a word. Futurama proved that.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
It's crystal-clear:
XmlHttpRequest is a "de facto" standard, yes. It was introduced by Microsoft, yes (it was not intended for AJAX, though), and IE implements it right by definition.
On the other hand, it's not possible to do AJAX if if the DOM and every thing else in the browser is not standards conformant, and boy, Microsoft has troubles doing that! It's the same old problem with JavaScript, only much worse.
Makes sense now?
Quite simply getting access to some of the finest German shizer films on the web!
What? you'd claiming that the internet is used for more than just fulfilling the fetish desires of lonely men in their basement?! heresy! heresy I say!
Hey at least we know one thing. Microsoft putting out code to work in Linux as a survival mechanism. It may not be a good thing to happen - but it does indicate a current strength of linux.
..a what? ...a platform! Yes Microsoft are at their old tricks by trying to push out platforms. Sooner or later Microsoft will pull the plug on Silverlight, or at least get lots of open-source stuff dependant on it, and then kill it. OH noooOOes now I can't use my $1 million dollar application because Microsoft did something legaly & I can't use Silverlight anymore.
The classic thing to note here is that microsoft have contributed a
-Insert voice of gay guy from Family Guy going 'ohhh Noooowoowowoww'-
Whats the harm in yelling 'Computer, end program!'? You could be living in Star Trek! Go on.. give it a try.
Which would make you either the best kind of troll or the worst kind of insane.
Personally, I would bet on insane. YMMV.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Moonlight features codecs that have already been licensed by Microsoft from major media companies. Moonlight users are indemnified against litigation that might arise from their use in Moonlight due to the Novell whole agreement...thing. In other words, everyone's safe from the (possible or otherwise) threat of litigation, honest!
Also, Moonlight 1.0 has been tested with, and passed, all the regression-testing tools Microsoft tested with Silverlight. Meaning a guaranteed high level of compatibility.
Of course the motivation behind this isn't of course Microsoft's "throbbing heart" for the FOSS community; it's purely and simply that it wants to blow Flash out of the water, and is even willing to Open Source, support, and invest heavily in OSS to do it if necessary.
And that's good because it means Adobe will have to raise the bar on flash now someone's invading it's territory...put another way, did you REALLY think you'd get 64-bit flash support on Linux from Adobe if Silverlight hadn't been released?
throw new NoSignatureException();
Silverlight version 2.0 was released in October 2008, which brings additional interactivity features and support for .NET languages and development tools. Version 2.0 streams cannot be played by this Moonlight 1.0.
I don't see this fitting with the viewers use-cases.
I see video uses of
The only one of these where I see a niche for this sort of video transfer is the live events section and the advantage is for the broadcaster not the viewer, in that the system keeps going if it gets oversubscribed.
Then even in the case where it might be useful it's not that good. The best solution would be a form of progressive download, where you get the low res chunks first (used in all cases) and then, if you have time before it gets shown, you add the high resolution details on top. That way the broadcaster's bandwidth to the caches is wasted.
This does tell me one thing though, WTH happened to my webcache. It was wiped out by hundreds of useless little video bits which clogged it up forcing out the useful stuff.
Thinking about it, this video service is probably best at providing a HD stream during the demo without actually having to buy the bandwidth to provide a HD stream during an actual live event ...
Ok so when MS have a monopoly in browsers everyone hates them and the EU courts fine them on a regular basis.
Why can Apple package an OS with a browser and not get done for anti competitive behavour?
If MS stop packaging IE with windows what would I download firefox with ?
Flash monopolises the interactive content part of that and its "bad" that there is more competition.
Why are we against one monoply and for another ?
Why are "the people" backing the closed source solution ?
Personally I like Silverlight it does a lot more than flash does (but not everything that flash does), Moonlight is a great project and it is open source and it has MS as a backer so its going to be around for a while. Its driving Adobe and MS to support more platforms and inovate more than they have in a while which cant be anything but a good thing.
I've had this installed for a couple of weeks already. I have yet find a site that wants Silverlight 1: seems to me anyone buying into this has already moved on to Silverlight 2.
The only reason Microsoft is allowing Moonlight on Linux is because there is someone to hurt!! (Adobe)
If there was anything else MS wasn't market leader in they would probably hint novell into making a clone of that too.
Asynchronous JavaScript and XML
the X = XML
Not Microsoft Not ActiveX ?
XmlHttpRequest was a Microsoft technology ....in the very beginning
But Ajax as it is now does not have to be XML, or Javascript, or Asynchronous in fact it is a merger of the various systems before Microsoft first designed XmlHttpRequest ?
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
We already have a great method for delivering media content, applications, and application updates:
BITTORRENT
Bittorrent rocks!!!
Try it sometime Microsoft. I think you'll like it. It's also free.
is a lie?
"sudo rm -rf your-face"
yes, yet another solution to a problem that didn't need fixing.
People had been doing web applications with the same effect using hidden IFRAMES for years prior to the uptake of XmlHttpRequest. Infact, Google uses IFRAMES for Google Maps to load JSON (so really it's AJAJ rather than AJAX) - but Microsoft showed us a 'better way' using a non-standard method that is only supported by their browser.
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
Still no element.addEventListener, eh? :(
What else have they botched? I want to hear it. I haven't come across a good rant on this on MozillaZine or WebDevout, where I'd expect to find one.
Tried with http://www.classicaltv.com/
Didn't work.
This was just joyful curiosity, so the plugin has been removed now, I emailed the website asking why something I can do in YouTube can't be done on their website.
I await with interest their answer ....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Just for the sake of argument, maybe the real complaint should be that the W3C did a poor job "standardizing" on the rest of IE5? I don't like Microsoft, but considering it had the largest user base and its developers are least interested in listening to the W3C, it sure would have made things easier.
Maybe not
Cross-platform....... Using a blob of codecs that are almost certainly not going to be updated or even there in a few years' time.
I don't think you understand quite what cross-platform means.
There's nothing fixed with silverlight and it's another binary tech that ties the internet back into one company.
I totally disagree, if I have to do c# programming at work then I'd rather have a choice of doing it on Linux then being forced to use windows simply because no one else bothered to implement the standard.
The GP does work for MS you idiot.
"As for cross-platform, Moonlight 2.0 should be able to run SmoothHD just fine, and more importantly a whole lot of irrelevant content published using that platform."
There, fixed.
I think I'll just ignore any site that requires Silverlight until it fades off into obscurity (more or less like ActiveX).
Is this another try to get Opera out of business by the mozilla guys?
Sites that use Silverlight don't recognise it and just present you with an "Install Microsoft Silverlight" button where the content should be.
There's a lot of flexibility in how a site can present the install option. For example, NBCOlympics.com offered a fallback to an IE embedded WMP ActiveX component.
We are talking about people who can't or won't run Silverlight, either because they run Linux or because of security concerns. I really doubt they're going to run IE-embedded WMP ActiveX stuff. That's three times scarier.
In fact you may have given them a heart attack just by writing those three names in a single sentence.
It is a user-space application. No Microsoft IP is going into the kernel.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Why can Apple package an OS with a browser and not get done for anti competitive behavour?
Apple has less than 10% market share.
Why are we against one monoply and for another ?
Flash is evil too.
For example, NBCOlympics.com offered a fallback to an IE embedded WMP ActiveX component. I agree that more sites could do a nicer job of it, and we're talking to them about improving that experience.
Oh good, we can fall back to the older, less secure Windows model?
Cross-platform compatibility is the key. And I don't think one can reasonably trust anything based on a Microsoft standard. It doesn't mean I won't install moonlight anywhere, but it does mean I won't ever, ever be using silverlight.
If the system doesn't fall back to something actually standards-compliant without me having to do anything, then it is a gigantic fuckup. I don't want to do it Microsoft's way, I want to do it the right way, the standard way, the correct way.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
WHY ?!?
Read radical news here
Moonlight 1.0 is licensed under the terms of the GNU LGPL, it is a pure C++ engine.
...
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...
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.. :)
Moonlight 2.0 contains code that is licensed under the terms of the GNU LGPL and the MIT X11 licenses, it includes the graphical C++ engine, the Mono Runtime and the Mono class libraries.
Users of Moonlight interested in using this on embedded systems should contact the Mono at Novell team (http://www.go-mono.com/contact) to obtain a commercial license. See our Licensing page for details.
The Microsoft covenant for Moonlight users is posted here).
'Microsoft, on behalf of itself and its Subsidiaries, hereby covenants not to sue Downstream Recipients of Novell and its Subsidiaries for infringement under Necessary Claims of Microsoft on account of such Downstream Recipients' use of Moonlight Implementations to the extent originally provided by Novell'
unquote
So, basically you are violating Microsofts patents if you use mono and only Novells Downstream Recipients are indemnified
Wait there's more
"Moonlight Implementation" means only those specific portions of Moonlight 1.0 or Moonlight 1.1 that run only as a plug-in to a browser on a Personal Computer and are not licensed under GPLv3 or a Similar License
So it is both licensed and not licensed under the GPL
This is nothing but BS. Show me ONE implementation that gets "how fast is a clients line" correctly all the time AND can downscale it's video if the clients line loses speed or/and CPU & disk power. The answer: you can't. it's impossible just for the sheer fact of the complexity of the systems involved and their incompatibility with what the technology want.
And supposedly the technology who manages to do this is implemented in MONO? in .NET? AHAHAHAHAHHAHA
Now. The only thing you will accomplish by trying something like this(and atleast with your pos bloated .net technology) is requiring higher HW(already happened with silverlight) and giving the user a more bloated, shittier internet experience). Add to that it's tied to one vendor that is composed of people like you who have no connection to the ground going around thinking they are "visionary" and you have a recipe for FAIL.
"To answer somebody's earlier question, Moonlight 1.0 is licensed under LGPL"
"Moonlight Implementation" means only those specific portions of Moonlight 1.0 or Moonlight 1.1 that run only as a plug-in to a browser on a Personal Computer and are not licensed under GPLv3 or a Similar License.
I think this is another "meh" considering Windows Media and MP3 formats are both taken care of by gstreamer plugins, w32(64)codecs and other codec packs avaliable in various repo's.
Slashdot is located in the United States. Unlike the codecs for Moonlight, which appear to have been licensed, I don't see how "gstreamer plugins, w32(64)codecs and other codec packs avaliable in various repo's" are lawful to distribute under United States patent law.
The good news is that those who finally move away from IE6 aren't all moving to IE7. Many of those users are switching to an alternative browser.
I'm in the middle of reloading a machine for a local nursery right now. They know they must have firefox because with IE they are "unprotected". They don't know this because I told them - they know from experience. Want to know what I'm doing to this machine? Reloading it and running updates, period the end. People who can't even follow the prompts to reinstall windows (and the system was even already set to boot from CD) know that running Aieeee will get them owned.
IE is on the way out. Good riddance.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Neither this or moonshine work, sites still still invite downloading Silverlight in order to play content. I have .NET sources that won't build under mono 2.2, so it's usefulness seems limited to code specially written for it.
Just out of curiosity, does it prompt you for permission to download? I'm wondering what sort of protections they have against someone using either their own codec (thus downloading arbitrary executable content - presumably they don't allow this), an obscure codec not typically used (this would greatly increase the attack surface area since it effectively becomes any bug in any codec supported by the platform whether or not you have it installed), and finally against man in the middle attacks that allows someone to deliver you a false codec when you're trying to download a normal one.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
Come on, kids. "Something I don't agree with" isn't a "Troll". In order for it to be a troll, someone has to say something they don't believe. Clearly that is not the case here. As much as I dislike ivory towers, I dislike the slashdot moderation model even more.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Any other reasons why you'd want Silverlight?
Say it with me, "Monopolies are bad."
Just because it's Microsoft doesn't make it evil. What's truly evil is being forced to rely on something like Flash to bring you content--no matter what.
Am I the only person dismayed by the fact that flash video is *so* horrible, you can't full screen youtube's HD stuff on a 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 machine?
I mean, FFS, Adobe had Flash ready for the iPhone in months.... But we can't even get a native x64 version of it on ANY OS. If Microsoft can force some swift kicks in Adobe's ass (which they should for forcing me to download a damned plugin to save to PDF in Office 2007 anyway) and vice-versa, I see nothing but good things on the road ahead.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
Its ok...he probably is using Windows XP SP0 HP Recovery Disks on all the computers at his place.
Meanwhile, I've got 5 copies of a multiboot disk with Server 2003, 2000, and XP fully patched and every driver needed for those systems integrated. I think the XP ISO is somewhere near 180mb on its own.
I wish I knew where he worked, cause I've fixed all the problems at my place.
Just for the sake of argument, maybe the real complaint should be that the W3C did a poor job "standardizing" on the rest of IE5? I don't like Microsoft, but considering it had the largest user base and its developers are least interested in listening to the W3C, it sure would have made things easier.
And braindead broken. (OOXML anyone?)
Those who would give up liberty to obtain working drivers, deserve neither liberty nor working drivers.
That is indeed something that neither flash or silverlight 1.0 can do. I think (don't cite me for fact here), but if I recall even from other slashdot comments that silverlight 2.0 can do that but lo and behold, there is no planned release (nor even started development) on that for anything other than windows.
Like people said, silverlight = activeX for multiple OS's. I'll pass.
So, has anyone tried Moonlight yet?
It must not work very well, because the folk over at Sun doing JavaFX claim you just can't make a performant, web-based graphics engine for open platforms (not even their own OpenSolaris).
Why are you linking to a youtube video and not the actual website?
AC because defending an MS technology costs you karma
So what? It's not like you can accrue it and turn it into money. Once you have a big enough positive balance the extra is worthless, except as a buffer for making unpopular comments.
Here's a very comprehensive rant I gave a while back, along with links to other well-documented rants:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1105033&cid=26614099
I particularly recommend this link:
http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/wrongWithIE/
Going through that site with IE and any other browser is a seriously eye-opening experience. ;-)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
In other words, only novell can distribute, so much for it being free software. I guess that eventually if/when it gets very popular novell will simply stop distributing it for other Linuxes, and then when it gets more popular, MS will not contribute to moonlight anymore, letting as go die. Fortunately, I really doubt silverlight would work out.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Moonlight will always be at least one version behind the latest and greatest silverlight version in terms of features. And that will be dependent on Microsoft's latest game plan. Linux distros will be extremely stupid to fall for this de Icaza maneuver.
I didn't think Moonlight was actually shipping with Microsoft's codecs. My version didn't. When I first vistited a site that required them it offered to download and install them for me.
Time makes more converts than reason
They know they must have firefox because with IE they are "unprotected".
Of course these same people will be "unprotected" if Firefox becomes the dominant browser.
If the system doesn't fall back to something actually standards-compliant without me having to do anything, then it is a gigantic fuckup. I don't want to do it Microsoft's way, I want to do it the right way, the standard way, the correct way.
What will HTML5 fall back to when a non-HTML5 compatible browser is being used?
Fallbacks are an orthogonal and unavoidable issue. Really, the only media format that'll really play from a browser on 99% of PCs today is a http://www.foo.mpg/ link to a MPEG-1 file. It's great to fantasize about "one format to rule them all" but even when that's introduced in a product, it won't become universal until there aren't any systems left that can't play it. And the best way to embed video will be well beyond HTML5 by the time HTML5 may be universal. Heck, if the baseline is just Theora + Vorbis, it's already 5-8 years behind the state of the art. And we'll proabably have H.265 in 4-5 years...
My video compression blog
Of course these same people will be "unprotected" if Firefox becomes the dominant browser.
The more people use firefox, the more major companies will depend on it, and the more money they will spend on securing firefox, just as has happened with Linux.
I will bet good money that the people with the most pissed-off hardware and internet connections are already overwhelmingly using Firefox, so their computers are highly desirable. IE is the low-hanging fruit. It is however losing market share pretty rapidly now and that sort of thing has a runaway effect.
So will the exploits against Firefox increase? Yes. But the quality will increase as well. I believe that the open source model is inherently superior and has not only already produced a more secure product, but will continue to do so.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I keep hearing this but no evidence supports it. The only evidence you can provide is "Microsoft is evil". Despite your quite common belief that Mono is some kind of Microsoft plot, Microsoft has been actively helping Mono. I don't think this is going to change anytime soon and just like any company Microsoft has, and will continue to change. I think when Ballmer leaves you're really going to notice a change. As more and more of Microsoft's developers have experience with Linux and acceptance of Linux the attitudes will change, they already are. Can you imagine if Windows released their proprietary codecs freely to Linux systems 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago? Of course pure software purists would not accept them but a lot of people would have been very happy to have freely licensed codecs to legally watch video on Linux. Now when they do it it's made out to be some kind of plot. It's a little tin-foil hat-ish.
They're still a business and they're still going to try to push their solution over all others but this isn't anything different than any other business out there, including Linux companies like Red Hat but comapanies are not monolithic, never changing entities. Those that don't change with the times die and Microsoft knows that. They can't just depend on being installed on 99% of computers anymore and no amount of lawsuits are going to change that in this global economy.
Time makes more converts than reason
What will HTML5 fall back to when a non-HTML5 compatible browser is being used?
As long as it isn't Silverlight I couldn't care less, really.
I am so sick and tired of Microsoft - the company! - that I hardly know what more to say these days. Work within publicly available standards. Do not rely on patented crap in implementations of what should be public specifications. Compete on quality. For once. Take the ethical and moral responsibilities that necessarily comes with being an effective monopoly. In short, stop being a law-breaking psychopath. (Still talking about the company as a whole. The corporate entity/person.)
The day this article hit slashdot I said that the purpose for this was to insert Microsoft IP into Linux. People called me crazy.
You weren't some lone wise man. A lot of people saw the dangers -- in fact, the general Slashdot vibe was highly negative against Novell for this deal. Where's the link to your post? I want to see all the people calling you crazy.
Here's a comment from Nov. 2, 2006, six days before the article you mentioned:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=204311&cid=16694275
Very simply... (Score:2, Insightful)
by turgid (580780) Alter Relationship on Thursday November 02 2006, @03:48PM (#16694275) Journal
By getting their technology ("Intellectual Property", patents etc.) into SuSE Linux, the automatically get Novell and all of its SuSE customers hooked on MS IP. Then, other users will succumb, because they will see the features in SuSE and either migrate or demand it in their own distros.
Why? So? Who cares?
Never used Netflix, have you?
That part was clear. My issue was that the content of the first link was not clear. I assume from the name it's a site that streams HD videos. Which means... well, nothing. Absolutely nothing to me. There's a variety of sites that already do that. Without more information, I can't understand why your site is superior enough to make me install Silverlight.
Complete nonsense. The idea of "SD" vs. "HD" has been so ingrained into our culture at this point, that it's quite easy for users to figure it out. Take this movie website as an example:
http://www.startrekmovie.com/
It streams the trailer in computer resolution by default and gives the options for smaller versions (iPod/iPhone) and larger versions (HD). No one complains that they can't see the trailer. It either just works, or they select a resolution more appropriate to their device. Plus they're made aware that they can watch the super-hires stuff by the "HD" link. Apple's website gives users the option of "Small/Medium/Large/iPod". Again, no one complains that they can't figure out how to get the video to work. They complain far more about having to install Quicktime. (Sort of like I'm complaining about Silverlight.)
You're completely missing the point. Multibitrate does not matter. Consider how many people link off to the Youtube versions of the Star Trek trailers! Those are of terrible quality. Yet the convenience and real-world benefits are more important to them than HD resolutions.
HD will catch on when the hardware gets here. And the reason why it will catch on when the hardware gets here is because that is when the best experience can be offered. It's not about HD vs. non-HD. That's a red herring. It's about providing a better service overall. HD video is a bonus and nothing more.
I understand that you've probably put a lot of heart and soul into making multibitrate work. But what you're working on is the modern equivalent of sending VOC files to the PC Speaker. A nifty technology that never saw wide distribution because it attempted to close a perceived gap that simply wasn't there. In the end, users upgraded to SoundBlaster sound cards rather than supporting the VOC->Speaker technology.
You aren't listening. I don't care about the install option. I don't want to install Silverlight. It's the job of the website to convince me that "Yes you do!" The website does nothing to convince me. It merely gives me an ultimatum: We won't show you what we're about until you install this plugin. So install it or leave.
I leave.
In comparison, Youtube can be navigated without Flash. A user can understand what the site is about, why they might want the service, and ultimately make an informed decision about installing Flash.
Good to know that they made the effort to support my Mac, cell phone, Nintendo Wii, PS3, set-top box, Linux, etc. No, wait...
Indeed. They could use multi-platform H.264 codecs and thus support nearly every web player on the market. From HTML5 video to the widely deployed Flash 10.
Whoops. That wasn't what you mean
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The more people use firefox, the more major companies will depend on it, and the more money they will spend on securing firefox, just as has happened with Linux.
I hope that's the case, however in the years Firefox could have learned from IE's mistakes, they haven't fundamentally addressed the security concerns. As a counter-example, Google's Chrome actually showed some innovation in this area.
As for Linux, I'm willing to bet a default Ubuntu install is inherently no more secure than Windows, except for the amount of attention Microsoft gets because of its market dominance.
Complete nonsense. The idea of "SD" vs. "HD" has been so ingrained into our culture at this point, that it's quite easy for users to figure it out. Take this movie website as an example:
But does the median user really know which clip their machine is capable of?
Note that Apple's trailers default to a small embedded version, presumably because their user research shows that is more accessible. The high quality download versions require a few extra clicks, and an impossing array of choices. It's a bad user experience, and it's now possible to provide a better one.
Moreso, progressive download movie trailers are great for 90-150 seconds of high interest content. Lots of trailers are worth waiting 10 min for, which can work if the data rate is 5x the connection speed. But for a two hour movie, does anyone want to wait 10 hours? Smooth Streaming's sweet spot is ffor longer form content where the user wants instant-on, low-delay scrubbing, no "buffering" messages, and at the best quality they can get within those constraints.
Again, think "PVR in the cloud".
You're completely missing the point. Multibitrate does not matter. Consider how many people link off to the Youtube versions of the Star Trek trailers! Those are of terrible quality. Yet the convenience and real-world benefits are more important to them than HD resolutions.
Sure it does. In general, content > accessibility > quality. Most people will watch content they like over content they don't like, and will put up with accessibility barriers before they'll watch stuff they don't like. Most people will put up with quality issues in order to have a much better accessibility to the content, but will chose the accessible version over the non-accessible version if both are available. Assuming the same content is availabe and accessable in a high quality and a low quality form, they'll pick the higher quality version.
Also, poor video and audio quality is very dependent on the content and the experience the user is trying to have. Sure, the PS3 has YouTube, but watching it on a HD display at leaning back on a couch at 10' is nearly unbearable, even though the same clip would be fine in a small window on a PC with other stuff going on. With Smooth Streaming, we want to really enable to full consumer HD experience AND the streaming model at the same time.
HD will catch on when the hardware gets here. And the reason why it will catch on when the hardware gets here is because that is when the best experience can be offered. It's not about HD vs. non-HD. That's a red herring. It's about providing a better service overall. HD video is a bonus and nothing more.
The hardware and broadband is here, it's just unevenly distributed. The goal of the technology is to provide every user with the best experience they can get at that moment, without having to underserve the high end or block out the low end.
You aren't listening. I don't care about the install option. I don't want to install Silverlight. It's the job of the website to convince me that "Yes you do!" The website does nothing to convince me. It merely gives me an ultimatum: We won't show you what we're about until you install this plugin. So install it or leave.
This is a technology demo site, not a consumer site. Consumer sites could deliver this in a wide variety of different ways, including offering a fallback experience if appropriate.
You meant that they could do a better job of forcing you to use Microsoft technology that's only supported by Microsoft and 'strongly encourages' users to use Microsoft Windows, all while giving them a warm/glowy feeling about Microsoft's super-duper attempts at supporting Macs in addition to the many multiple versions of Windows. (The latter being the classic Microsoft definition of "cross-platform".) That's what you really meant, wasn't it?
That's the definitio
My video compression blog
How is VS terrible for this?
Anyway, if you're an Eclipse fan, have you checked out the Eclipse Tools for Microsoft Silverlight?
http://www.eclipse4sl.org/
My video compression blog
Where's the link to your post?
If you subscribe you can find it yourself.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Cross-platform....... Using a blob of codecs that are almost certainly not going to be updated or even there in a few years' time.
Moonlight was prototyped with ffmpeg. Moonlight proper is GPL; you can plug whatever media pipeline you want in there.
We're offering the binary codec download so that Microsoft can take care of the patent licensing fees for the codecs. That addresses a big concern some have about media playback on Linux.
We're planning on doing an update to the codec module including the Silverlight 3 codecs (adding H.264 and AAC-LC).
Note that the Moonlight 1.0 codec module is actually the Silverlight 2 codecs, inclduing WMA 10 Pro and a bunch of optimiation work. Contrary to your intuition, the one part Microsoft actualy delivers is the full Silverlight 2 implementation.
My video compression blog
Yeah, but most people are stuck coding for the brain dead broken implementation anyway. The only difference is that now instead of just coding to the brain dead stupid implementation, everybody has to do twice as much work, first getting their pages to work in "standard" browsers, and then in IE. Except for getting to charge twice as many hours, where's the benefit?
It's kind of hard to take the whining about Microsoft's standards compliance seriously when it seems most of the problems people are having are self imposed. Did anybody really expect Microsoft to play along with standardization? Anybody with a half a brain should have seen all of this coming.
Maybe not
So, huh, server market?
I heard Win Server had a kickass share compared to various *nix OS >.>
Everyone knows the money is on the desktop, right, course... .
You made the claim. I'm not going to pay money to sift through all your posts. I did, however, look for a Slashdot story linking to the article you referenced and didn't find any. What I did find was somebody saying the same thing days before more details came out and nobody called him crazy.
*looks over eyeglasses at 'weston(16146)' laying on shrink's couch*
So, weston (16146), how does this make you really feel?
[I joke!]
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
They don't need to. It follows that if the movie is too slow, try the smaller one. Alternatively, they can try the HD version and see if it works for them. There's more steps, but it's not a burden by any stretch of the imagination.
I honestly think you're trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Balancing the movie quality to reach the highest number of users appears to be the best option here. iTunes users seem more than happy enough with the service. (I've certainly never had any problems with movie quality.) Do those users have a burning need for downloadable movies in 1080p? Hell, no. And you're not going to provide it to them anyway. (See below)
It's interesting how you understand this without actually understanding it. By your own admission, a user is more likely to try and find the video they want on Youtube long before they become willing to download a Silverlight plugin. Only after they have exhausted all accessibility options for the content they want will they accept the quality benefits. In other words, you've just argued against your own product.
I like the assumptions you make about how the technology will get used. Assumptions which are neither correct (there are plenty of sites that use the same technology to target a specific device and optimize to the needs of that device) and ultimately pointless because Silverlight doesn't support these devices. Even a sub-standard experience is usually better than no experience at all.
Actually, you're going to provide them with a substandard experience. You're automatically going to degrade their experience based on factors that the user doesn't understand. The user can do nothing to change the settings and find for himself why his experience is worse than his neighbor's experience. It just is. He's painfully upgrade all his hardware and STILL have a worse experience, never knowing that his neighbor's bandwidth is better.
With options for different sizes, it works when the user wants it to work. But the user who wants to make it better can test out the other options and understand why it's not working. Oh, it keep saying "buffering". Duh. I need bigger Tubes for my Internets. Maybe some of that high fiber stuff that will help clean the pipes so my video goes faster.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Um...how does their active involvement make it less likely that it's some kind of Microsoft plot?
That's pre 7-11 thinking....
The plugin installs, but even if you manage to find silverlight 1.0 content (there is very little), all silverlight content checks to see if you're on windows/mac and tells you to install silverlight. This seems like some sort of cruel joke. Can ANYONE find any content that actually plays with this thing?
I think I read that one, and I know of the "...No, Internet Explorer did not handle it properly." website. Checking it out again, some of it seems to have been updated with IE8 info, so thanks for reminding me about it. :)
In particular, I'm looking for something that goes like "IE8 implements x, y and z, but it implements y wrong, and still doesn't implement important standards a, b and c.".
By the way, I see you're also using the ACID3 test to make a point. You shouldn't. While ACID2 was very relevant in how it tested standards everyone was asking for, ACID3 is content testing for little very specific rendering bugs in various rendering engines and CSS3 (which isn't even a standard yet!).
They don't need to. It follows that if the movie is too slow, try the smaller one. Alternatively, they can try the HD version and see if it works for them. There's more steps, but it's not a burden by any stretch of the imagination.
Perhaps we have different operating definitions of burden here. Having a user try one thing, get a bad expereince with potentially unclear feedback, then try another thing? Not optimal, and worth fixing. Plus users are as likely to click on the loweset quality experience "just because it'll work" even if a higher one would have worked. This is a bigger deal with longer-form content and real-time playback, as changing networking conditions, PC load, etcetera can mean what was optimal when something was started does't remain optimal throughout the whole experience.
Why put the burden of that on the user; the application can have a much better sense of what it can do that the user.
I honestly think you're trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Balancing the movie quality to reach the highest number of users appears to be the best option here. iTunes users seem more than happy enough with the service. (I've certainly never had any problems with movie quality.) Do those users have a burning need for downloadable movies in 1080p? Hell, no. And you're not going to provide it to them anyway. (See below)
Great if iTunes has worked for you. But that's an explicitly download experience. In particular for rental content, forcing a long download for content that's going to expire anyway seems like a waste of user time. Much better to let them watch immediately if they want to.
It's interesting how you understand this without actually understanding it. By your own admission, a user is more likely to try and find the video they want on Youtube long before they become willing to download a Silverlight plugin. Only after they have exhausted all accessibility options for the content they want will they accept the quality benefits. In other words, you've just argued against your own product.
We'll obviously need to have Silverlight to be broadly installed, and very easy to istall for those who don't have it. That's something we're engaged with on a variety of fronts, and orthogonal to the issue of the accessibility of the experience once Silverlight is installed. Smooth Stremaing is still in alpha anyway; Silverlight will have that much higher market share by the time it's launched.
Actually, you're going to provide them with a substandard experience. You're automatically going to degrade their experience based on factors that the user doesn't understand. The user can do nothing to change the settings and find for himself why his experience is worse than his neighbor's experience. It just is. He's painfully upgrade all his hardware and STILL have a worse experience, never knowing that his neighbor's bandwidth is better.
Silverlight is turing complete; there's all kinds of ways to offer users information on what's going on and what could be done to improve it, which publishers can supply as appropriate. Certainly, they'll get a better experience streaming Smooth Stremaing than they've ever had before. Everything that'd make Smooth Streaming downshift would have just killed streaming dead anyway, so having video and audio playing back without a pause will be a big upgrade for them, even if they lose some visual detail.
What kind of demo site? As in, "Now that you have Silverlight installed try this" type of site or "look what we can do with this technology you should really get" type of site? Because it fails miserably at the latter. If I can't see it, I'm not sold on the technology. If it's the former, then it's on you to sell it to Slashdot so that we're convinced to download the plugin to try it.
You're in the small minority of people who go to the site and neither have Silverlight nor install
My video compression blog
I thought you asked for a rant? ;-)
Getting a comprehensive list of features support/not supported is hard given the scope of what a browser encompasses. You could use a tool like wttjs to test against the HTML5 WebIDL, but the output might be a bit more than you're looking for. From my perspective I'm worried about the big stuff that makes projects possible/not possible. So from my perspective, it's:
- No DOM2 Events support (Bug closed as "By Design")
- No CSS Opacity support (Bug closed as "By Design") and IE filter syntax is changed
- No SVG support
- HTML5 localStorage implementation is wrong
- Cross-Document messaging is wrong (lack of DOM2 Events here)
- A new Cross Domain XML Request object that incompatibly ignores the existing HTML5 work
- No Canvas support (not required, but pisses me off when they are supposedly adding HTML5 support)
- CSS is only slightly less borked. I defer to the earlier link for a description of this issue.
Here's a few articles covering these items and more:
http://annevankesteren.nl/2008/03/ie8-bad
http://annevankesteren.nl/2008/10/ie8-bad-update
http://annevankesteren.nl/2009/01/gettters-setters
http://connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=333958
http://webbugtrack.blogspot.com/
As an aside, make sure you read this:
http://annevankesteren.nl/2008/03/office-sucks
I'd go digging for more, but I'm afraid I don't have the time right now. Hopefully those links will get you started! :-)
That's a fair argument. Mostly lack of ACID3 compliance is just more to be annoyed about. Other browsers have extremely high scores on these tests while IE manages a paltry 20/100. I wouldn't care so much if IE wasn't such a piece of crap in other areas, but it is. So if anyone brings up ACID3, I get to complain that it is also terrible there too. :-P
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Even if it is so, and they become "unprotected" if Firefox becomes dominant, the situation would still be better. IE incompatibilities and lack of standards used to be an obstacle for using an alternative browser... But that is no more. If Firefox were to become dominant, it would still be a better situation, specially for those who later on chose to not use firefox.
ahh yes, editing out the parts where he has very strong points and you have no answers. Yes, he could be less caustic about it, but he has very good evidence to back up his assertions.
HTML5 can't do anything we talked about above, so it's not a good solution to these problems.
But it would be able to if your company didn't actively try to subvert it the way it subverts other standards it can't control and instead contributed to HTML5. You asked for a better solution and were given one. Contributing to HTML5 development would be better for everyone and less wasted time and effort for your employer. The only thing your employer wouldn't gain is lock in, so just admit that is your primary goal.
After all your and your company's claims of cross platform compatibility the 1.0 announcement here doesn't matter much since it doesn't actually do anything. It doesn't work. Netflix can't be viewed and neither can other demos.
Not that I think I'd install it because I don't want to support the type of bad corporate citizenship that AKAImBatman has pointed out above as evidence that your company will continue the same trend with this effort, but just saying. It does refute your claims that your company actually cares about making it cross platform and makes it more likely that you/they just want to make it look like it is.
Why the plugin wont be shipped by default is the same reason you pointed out of w32/64codecs. Licensing.
Suse may consider it (not likely in OpenSUSE though) however Ubuntu would most likely include it in the "Restricted Extras" bin where handy stuff like MP3, Flash, nVidia drivers and all the other handy functions that make PC's work well out of the box.
I don't know about the licensing issues in America. Im surprised Microsoft hasn't sued for Samba technologies if its that bad. The way I understood it these codec's are reverse engineered fair and square!
Make SELinux enforcing again!
Except that the codec isn't shipped. Moonlight is legal. Moonshine is legal. Mono is already shipped and used in Tomboy and F-Spot. The codecs are authorized downloads directly from MS.
Put identity in the browser.
As long as it doesnt include the codecs it should be fine (as its still open) however there is still abit of fear surrounding incorporating it into a distro
The true answer to all of this is to get HTML5 out the door!
Make SELinux enforcing again!