Silverlight 3.0 Released, Allows Apps Outside the Browser

Many different sources are reporting that Microsoft has unleashed the third major version of Silverlight to the masses. With 3.0 we see things like better 3D graphics support, the ability to offload tasks to a GPU, and the ability to run apps outside of the browser. "Silverlight's video capabilities have always been impressive when compared to Flash, and the new version boasts some new features that should keep the competition with Flash hot. It uses a media broadcasting technology Microsoft calls Smooth Streaming, an adaptive technology for playing the same H.264 video stream at the highest bitrate the device and its bandwidth limitations will allow. So if you've got a fast computer with an HD monitor and a wide open pipe, you'll see super high quality video at up to full 1080p HD. If you've got a dinky smartphone with mid-level data service, you'll see a constrained version of the same video."

Comments

3D graphics support

[sopssa]

3D graphics support does sound interesting, specially when thinking how many flash games there are out but how they lack better graphics. Maybe we start to see DirectX like games directly in web browser too.

Re:3D graphics support

[timeOday]

Maybe we start to see DirectX like games directly in web browser too.

Too bad "we" doesn't include "me." My linux-based PVR can't run Netflix on demand because it's silverlight-based, so that's my main association with the technology. Hulu is also linking out to broadcaster's own incompatible streaming sites rather than hosting stuff itself. I fear we are returning to the bad old days of a few years ago when a lot of multimedia on the web was incompatible with linux. Poor linux users, under-represented minority that we are :)

Re:3D graphics support

[rsclient]

It's not three-d graphics. It's layered two-d graphics with interesting transforms. You can make something look like it's flipping in or out, and you can do sprites, but you can't make a fully three-d game (that is, you can't rotate something around with bits sticking out).

Why not? Because this approach gets you a bunch of cool effects without the pain of real 3D programming.

(Disclaimer: I worked on silverlight)

Re:3D graphics support

[DECS]

Or more accurately, Chrome OS will push HTML 5 apps, making Flash and MS Flash (Silverlight) obsolete.

Microsoft is already targeting Smooth Streaming as the trojan horse for pushing Silverlight (and already successfully managed to force anyone who wanted to watch the Olympics or the DNC last year to download Silverlight 2). However, Apple has done an end run around Microsoft by submitting very similar technology it calls HTTP Live Streaming to the IETF as a proposed standard, patterned after SHOUTcast/Icecast HTTP streaming of MP3 (basically upgrading Internet radio to Internet TV).

And while Microsoft dutifully tries to push Silverlight out as The Only Client of its Smooth Streaming, Apple already has shipped HTTP Live Streaming in iPhone 3.0 to its installed base of +40 million active mobile iPhone/iPod Touch users, with partners Akamai and big name MPEG transport stream encoder vendors. In contrast, Smooth Streaming is designed to tie streaming only to Microsoft's streamer, IIS, and Silverlight on the client (surprise!).

Any client that can play H.264/AAC audio/video from MPEG transport streams can play content targeted to the iPhone. You can serve it from any web server. You don't need to create an iPhone App to deliver content to the iPhone, it streams right from the web, right now. That means it will be easy for vendors such as Palm or Android to support streaming video targeted to the iPhone, despite having a much smaller installed base than the iPhone. And with the release of Snow Leopard, QuickTime X will stream HTTP Live Streaming from the desktop, and presumably, Apple TV.

This tears away the primary need for Flash or MS Flash (Silverlight), paving the way open for HTML 5 to push compliant browsers (FireFox, Opera, Safari, other WebKit browsers) into the forefront and leave a dwindling minority on IE 6/7/8 with Silverlight/Flash. Best, HTML 5 can provide fallback, offering HTTP Live Streaming as the first option, H.264 progressive download as a secondary, Ogg Theora for Wikipedia hosting videos that won't play on any mobile devices outside of the desktop PC, and Flash for the Neanderthals among us.

Apple launches HTTP Live Streaming standard in iPhone 3.0 : with a timeline and history of Internet streaming and links to example sites.

Ogg was supposed to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

They called it bitrate peeling.

Re:Ogg was supposed to do this

[Lord Ender]

Sure, just send the most significant bits in a high-priority packet, and send the least significant bits in lower-priority packets. It seems so simple, it's hard to believe such a feature isn't supported in every audio and video codec.

And where exactly is moonlight?

[PrescriptionWarning]

I think one of the most reasonable concerns against the rising usage of silverlight, and therefore the need for moonlight for linux, is that if new version of moonlight can't keep up with the updated version of silverlight then its not the multiplatform wonder that it should be to be competitive with flash.

Security problems with a MS product? nah.

[Serilleous]

and the ability to run apps outside of the browser.

It seems to me like this offers a remarkable opportunity for some very serious vulnerabilities if it is not handled very very carefully.

Silverlight's video capabilities have always...

[tcopeland]

...been impressive when compared to Flash? Really? Then why did mlb.com switch from Silverlight to Flash? I remember when they did this - I had unsubscribed because the Silverlight player was such a mess, and I went back and signed up for the rest of the season.

That said, the ability to write Silverlight apps in Ruby is interesting.

DirectX on WebApps?

[wfstanle]

Why would you want a security atrocity like DirectX? Aren't there enough security holes already? If anything, we should think about banning DirectX from the Web? We should also ban ActiveX.

Re:DirectX on WebApps?

[miguel]

The difference is that Silverlight code is CIL bytecode that runs inside a sandbox.

ActiveX was native code, and you only had two options: to trust or to not trust, but once you installed the code, the executable had as many rights on your system as any other application running with your user ID.

Silverlight (and Moonlight) come with a sandbox that limits what the code that you download can do, for instance, they do not get direct access to any of your files.

Re:Why won't Adobe open source Flash?

[Anonymous Coward]

What would open sourcing Flash do for them? There are really two possibilities. First, it could attract contributions from external developers. The chance of this is slim, and most of the contributions would probably be poor, so this would just add administrative overhead on Adobe's side for accepting patches. Second, it could lead to forks of Flash. This would be devastating for Flash - the whole premise of Flash, and the reason it's so popular, is that It Just Works (tm) consistently across platforms.

H.264 licensing

[reginaldo]

The one step up I see that Silverlight 3 has is licensing for H.264 codecs. Microsoft has the deep pockets to purchase licensing such as this.

It is interesting that Moonlight is not currently pursuing H.264, which makes me wonder if MS is purposely gimping their linux/unix implementation.

Re:H.264 licensing

[miguel]

Moonlight will have H.264, but we are working towards our first beta of Moonlight 2.0

Re:I would call it a hypercompetitive move

[DECS]

Silverlight can only be "thought of as a sort of HTML 5" if you also sort of thought of Win32 as HTML 4.

Jesus Christ, it's just a clone of Flash that attempts to make Vista's .Net as a binary substitute for the open web.

And yes, Microsoft is desperately trying to compete with Chrome/Chrome OS/HTML 5, just like the company successfully killed Client-side Java and non-IE browsers as a threat to the Win32 monopoly, then sat back and let IE go rotten once it ruled the roost.

If you still live in the late 90s and think Microsoft is invincible and can decree standards by fiat with its monopoly share of the PC desktop and the web browser, let me welcome you to the 2000s, where:

- Microsoft's WMA/WMV-VC-1 codecs failed to kill or even matter in the face of MPEG H.264/ACC.
- Microsoft's HD-DVD + HDi failed against Blu-Ray and H.264 content in iTunes.
- Microsoft's ASF/AAF container files failed to win against QuickTime/MPEG-4 (with even MS now using MP4 in Smooth Streaming).
- Efforts to push Zune and PlaysForSure DRM and MS-DRM music subscriptions failed against the iPod and iTunes.
- Efforts to push Windows Mobile as a brand have collapsed in the face of the iPhone.
- Microsoft's IE monopoly over the web has shrunk down to 60% and continues a rapid decline as Firefox, Chrome and Safari eat up share.
- Microsoft's Windows monopoly is facing a global shrinking PC market, mass rejection of a heavyweight Vista/Win7 type operating system as systems move toward netbooks and ultra cheap PCs and laptops that can't support a fat OS, and the loss of the premium PC market for higher end systems to Apple.

Microsoft might be all you know, but it's time to start learning about alternatives or you'll be stuck with the dinosaurs.

Apple launches HTTP Live Streaming standard in iPhone 3.0
Ogg Theora, H.264 and the HTML 5 Browser Squabble
Why Windows 7 is Microsoft's next Zune
Why Windows 7 on Netbooks Won't Save Microsoft