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Microsoft Silverlight 3 now available

by Parm Mann on 10 July 2009, 10:53

Tags: Silverlight, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qasyt

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Microsoft Silverlight, a browser plug-in designed to help companies produce rich, web-based applications and user experiences, first arrived back in 2007 and was touted by many as the replacement for competing solutions such as Adobe Flash.

Today, some two years later, Flash remains the popular choice for animation and interactivity on websites - including the likes of the hugely-popular video-sharing service, YouTube.

That isn't due to a lack of trying on Microsoft's part, mind you. The software giant rolled out Silverlight 2 late last year, and has now made available the latest release, Silverlight 3.

The update, given version number 3.0.40524.9, is available to download at Microsoft.com/Silverlight and introduces a number of key new features including GPU hardware acceleration and support for H.264, AAC and MPEG-4 codecs.

Silverlight 3 also includes support for IIS7 Smooth Streaming - a technology that we bandwidth-starved Brits are likely to love. Smooth Streaming allows for near-instant playback of HD media. When bandwidth is sufficient, media will playback at full bitrate. Should the available bandwidth fluctuate or drop, Smooth Streaming will dynamically adjust bitrate to ensure you aren't greeted with the dreaded "buffering..." message. It's a pretty cool and useful technology, and Silverlight users can see it in action in an online demo by clicking here.

Want to know what else is new in Silverlight 3? Check out the what's new guide by Silverlight program manager Tim Heuer.

Microsoft lists Silverlight 3's minimum system requirements as follows:

Personal Computer running Windows X86 or x64 500-megahertz (MHz) or higher processor with 128-megabytes (MB) of RAM
Mac OS 10.4.8+ (PowerPC) PowerPC G4 800-MHz or higher processor with 128-MB of RAM
Mac OS 10.4.8+ (Intel-based) Intel Core Duo 1.83-gigahertz (GHz) or higher processor with 128-MB of RAM

A list of compatible browsers is available at Microsoft.com/Silverlight.



HEXUS Forums :: 8 Comments

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Guys this is waaay more than a flash alternative :(

Its far more akin to a java applet alternative, that has security and very easy out of the box simple functionality.

Because it uses a declarative markup language its very easy to describe ‘cool’ graphical effects and the like, packaged with blend it allows the adobe level developer to use it.

But it is far beyond what flash can do, as you have a fully functional platform, any .Net language can be used too.
T-Mobiles proxy can intercept and re-compress graphics used in embeded Silverlight objects, this makes it far far faster to load on a connection with poor signal.

The main Hexus site is a complete nightnare to use in such circumstances. All those flash adds are massive when you are pulling just a few KB/sec!
The streaming demo is nice too, a slider lets you alter the bandwidth supplied, and the video hardly jerks and there's no dreaded buffering either…

:)
/me prays for Youtube in Silverlight.

Silverlight > Flash.
I hope if youtube does use silverlight we have a choose on weither to use that version or not since silverlight doesnt work with opera yet. it is being worked on thou.