Silverlight - Adobe
Media Player |
Silverlight comprises a set of technologies
based on the Windows Presentation Foundation programming interfaces shipped
with Windows Vista. It allows for different multimedia types to be displayed
on screen, including vector graphics and video files. Importantly for the
move to high definition, Microsoft says that Silverlight can deliver streaming
videos encoded with VC-1 at up to 720 lines of resolution. Flash currently
has a limit of 576 lines, though I can't see why this couldn't be improved
in future versions. Silverlight claims to be cross-platform (take that
with as much salt as you like) whilst development tools, unsurprisingly,
are for Windows only. Of course this isn't the only solution for encoding
high definition content on the web, and it will be interesting to see how
aggressively Microsoft market this, particularly as a replacement for the
hugely popular, but currently standard definition limited, Flash.
Microsoft targets Adobe's Flash From Bloomberg News April 17, 2007 Microsoft Corp. plans to introduce software that puts
videos on websites in a bid to win users from the market leader, Adobe
Systems Inc.'s Flash. The program, called Silverlight, will be used by
companies such as Netflix Inc. and Universal Music Group, said Forest Key,
a director of product management at Microsoft. The technology will help
them create video-intensive Web pages that
will appear the same on almost all operating systems. Microsoft is touting
the program as cheaper and easier for Web developers to use than Flash,
which is on 98% of the world's personal computers. The company expects
the program to encourage Web designers to use more Microsoft tools, Key
said. This week, Adobe plans to introduce technologies to lower the cost
of encoding Flash videos, said Michele Turner, an Adobe vice president.
"Developing for Flash is dead-on cheap," Turner said. "We feel like we're
way ahead today." But Key said there weren't enough website designers familiar
with Flash. "The explosion of media on the Web is
not happening as fast as it could because Flash isn't as good as it should
be," he said. Macworld: http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/04/17/silverlight/index.php
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JOHN
LONGENECKER
