Microsoft Unveils Silverlight 'Flash Killer'

Published: April 18, 2007

by Alex Woodie

Microsoft rolled out a new Web-based digital video technology this week called Silverlight that will go head-to-head with Adobe's Macromedia Flash player, and also Apple's QuickTime to a lesser extent.

With Silverlight, Microsoft is seeking to deliver a single video standard that can scale from the smallest mobile video screens to the biggest high-definition TVs, without requiring additional encoding or format conversion. Users will be able to run it on a desktop or deployed from a Windows server.

"We've consistently heard from the media companies that they want the ability to easily implement key technologies for Internet video and rich broadband experiences," says Bob Mason, chief technology officer at Brightcove, a Massachusetts provider of Internet TV service. "With the release of Silverlight, Microsoft is bringing rich interactive experiences coupled with the VC-1 video standard into the browser. . . . We're excited . . ."

In addition to Brightcove, Microsoft has attracted several other prominent tech or content providers to Silverlight, including Akamai Technologies, Major League Baseball, and Netflix, which plans to use Silverlight for its new Web-based movie service. "We're excited about Microsoft Silverlight as a platform to enable instant watching of great content for all our members, on multiple platforms," said Netflix' chief product manager, Neil Hunt.

Silverlight was previously known as Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere (WPF/E). It runs as a plug-in to Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari, enabling users to view videos, ads, or games in their browser. The software supports up to 720p video resolution, or 1280 x 720, which is the most popular high definition standard used today.

When the product becomes fully available later this year, various components will be available, including: the Expression Media Encoder, a Windows server or Windows desktop application that performs video importing, compression, and Web publishing; a driver for Tarari's encoder accelerator, which will reduce encode times by up to 15 times over software alone; a new component for Windows Server "Longhorn" that gives customers up to twice the scalability on the same hardware when compared with Windows Server 2003; and also a new Internet Information Services 7 (IIS7) Media Pack that adds bit-rate throttling and other features designed to reduce the cost of media distribution.

Silverlight is still in development, but beta versions of the free plug-in are available for download here.

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