A day earlier than expected, Microsoft has launched its third edition of
Silverlight and its SDK. As
Ars Technica notes, some of the bigger improvements on the user side are GPU hardware acceleration and new codec support including H.264, AAC, and MPEG-4. If you're looking to give it a spin, there's a Smooth Streaming demo available that, as the name suggests, does a pretty good job of streaming HD video with little stutter, even when skipping around. If you've got Firefox 2, Internet Explorer 6, Safari 3 or anything fresher, hit up the read link to get the update.
[Via
Ars Technica]
Read - Download Page
Read - Smooth Streaming demo
posted Jul 9th 2009 at 9:42PM
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
UnnDunn @ Jul 9th 2009 10:46PM
The "Smooth Streaming" technology is not new; it's what Netflix uses to adjust video bitrate on the fly. Just saying.
Multi-format-mayhem @ Jul 9th 2009 11:46PM
Ummm, well, that happens to be because Netflix uses Silverlight.
Ordeith @ Jul 10th 2009 3:49AM
And Netflix is using Silverlight 2.
It is on the fly, but not as on the fly as this:
http://www.iis.net/media/experiencesmoothstreaming
Very nice.
Money Mike @ Jul 10th 2009 9:05AM
I haven't used my Netflix streaming in a while, but whenever it did the adjustment, the video always stopped to readjust. The example Ordeith gave the link for shows that when the adjustment is made, the video continues playing. Very, very cool. I wish YouTube did that.
aaron @ Jul 10th 2009 10:12AM
Yeah netflix is noting like smooth streaming.
And you heard it here first.... my bold prediction from ms with this is there will be a ms branded iptv service (and real iptv this time not the uverse stuff) for media center and xbox live within a couple of years. It will be a hybrid system where network shows are ondemand as soon as its aired live (think the current video marketplace with smooth streaming). You also dont need a dvr anymore... subscribe to the series you want to watch and watch things like football live). Zune has always been about the subscription and they would add a new subscription for this as well.
this idea came to me when watching the HD live broadcast of the jackson funeral..... they really can broadcast live HD signals now and have it work well (even from canada)
John Drinkwater @ Jul 10th 2009 3:24PM
It’s not new at all, since Real Player did it more than a decade ago...
Bozster @ Jul 10th 2009 12:57AM
Impressive.. I was looking forward to Silverlight 3.. I'm a big fan of flash but Flash has become more of a development tool for interactive things with solid support for vide.. but MS has done great things optimizing Silverlight for video. It's amazing how good 2.7mbps HD 1080p stream looks like. I saw the 5mpbs stream it was fantastic.
This is good news for everyone. Netflix will most likely upgrade to Silverlight 3 and the quality of HD will get even better. Online streaming is improving a lot faster then I expected.
shawnmos @ Jul 10th 2009 2:55AM
Will netflix stream on a netbook now without choppiness?
MajesticFlame @ Jul 10th 2009 10:48AM
I just tried streaming Netflix tonight on my Acer Aspire One D150 after updating to the new player. I have to say it is dramatically better.
Normal content played smooth and I also tried an "HD" video which played almost as well. For the HD you notice some very slight stuttering/frame skips on fast moving/panning shots but most people probably wouldn't even notice it.
Just a note that I was using Windows 7, I haven't rebooted into XP to try it there yet.
I am quite glad that it looks like I can stream to my netbook again.
Hopefully some other people can try it out and make sure it is running well on their netbooks as well.
Larry @ Jul 10th 2009 11:04AM
I downloaded the new version and the performance on the test site was much better. I will have to give this a try at home on my slower connection.
tama @ Jul 10th 2009 3:46PM
I don't know if I would call it hardware acceleration. At least it uses both cores.
antler @ Jul 13th 2009 9:47AM
If Silverlight's so good, why are sites (which were originally designed using that) switching to Flash now?