Microsoft Silverlight

[JaredKnight]

Can anyone provide me with a good reason to download and install this platform when other things seem to work? I have run across some things I would like to look at, but require Silverlight. Apologize if I am in wrong forum....

[Soopafresh]

It's just Microsoft trying to get in on the game. They're not satisfied with only owning the OS and Office market. Gotta go after Flash....

It's just a browser plugin on your system. You can remove the plugin later if it gives you problems.

[jman98]

In theory, with Microsoft's help (no kidding), Silverlight is being ported to other platforms through Project Mono. At this time I'm not sure if it's even possible to run Silverlight correctly on any platform but Windows. I'd guess not.

You might consider that the developers of any website requiring the use of Silverlight have made a conscious decision that their web content is (at this time at least) only accessible under Windows. No Mac, no Linux, no anything else - just Windows. You might also consider whether someone with this attitude really and truly has content that you just can't live without.

[thecoalman]

Silverlight works fine on the Mac platform and different browsers including Safari. I already had a few members of my forum test it months ago and none of them had any issues with it. Embedding a WMV or WMA stream into a web page is nearly impossible to do with consistent results for different browsers let alone different platforms. The biggest advantage for Silverlight IMO is it finally bridges that gap for streaming WMV and WMA to any browser on either a Windows or Mac platform without compatibility issues.

The biggest thing Silverlight brings to the table IMO is websites that do not have the resources to convert video server side can allow users to upload WMV or WMA without fear of compatibility problems regardless of browser and/or platform. Bandwidth and storage space is relatively cheap compared to RAM and CPU costs on a rented server. Considering Movie Maker and WMP is installed on nearly every windows machine creating high quality low bandwidth audio and video files is quite simple for the average user. That's a pretty big hammer hanging over Flash's head.

How many machines can create .flv out of the box?

[jagabo]

That reminds me, now that the Olympics are over I can remove Silverlight.

[edDV]

I tried Silverlight for Olympics VOD's and it did well. I also tried it on the Mac and it played with similar quality.

[jman98]

Thanks for the update, thecoalman. That's good to know.

[jagabo]

In theory, with Microsoft's help (no kidding), Silverlight is being ported to other platforms through Project Mono...

This is Microsoft's usual ploy to get widespread support for their format. Once they have a foothold they'll start withholding vital (new) API information from others to make them look bad and kill them off.