Lovefilm kills Flash for movie streaming, switches to Silverlight

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Lovefilm kills Flash for movie streaming, switches to Silverlight

Due to pressure from studios, Lovefilm will no longer be using Flash to stream online video. The European rental and streaming service announced yesterday that without moving to the more DRM-friendly Silverlight, it would "suddenly have next-to-no films to stream online." Flash will run alongside Silverlight until the first week of January, and streaming to devices won't be affected. However, this change marks the end of Lovefilm for Linux, one of the few advantages the service had over its American analogue Netflix, which has used Silverlight exclusively for some time. Lovefilm's parent company, Amazon, still uses Flash for its online streaming.

With Microsoft indicating that it may abandon Silverlight after the latest release, it's unclear how long Lovefilm will be able to use it, or what the future holds. Lovefilm calls HTML5 "an open-sourced solution that is still maturing" with no services "that would allow us to stream content securely," but Netflix began seriously discussing streaming through HTML5 as early as December of last year, and is helping to hammer out a secure standard.

Source: The Verge

[Teebor]

However, this change marks the end of Lovefilm for Linux, one of the few advantages the service had over its American analogue Netflix, which has used Silverlight exclusively for some time. Lovefilm's parent company, Amazon, still uses Flash for its online streaming.

With Microsoft indicating that it may abandon Silverlight after the latest release,

Moving in to the future one backwards step at a time

Ist good they are getting in on the HTML5 act though to get a DRM/secure system out there

[Axel]

I went on a lovefilm free trial recently. The streaming quality was absolutely atrocious via the PC and PS3! Just thought I'd mention that! My 40mbit connection could have served up 1080p no issue. They really ought to get their act together because this was the main part of the service I was interested in.

[etempest]

From a healthy but past it's prime tech (starting to decline) to.. to something that's closer to extinction....

Not saying Silverlight can't do the job, Netflix (on pc) uses it works well.

[Rudy]

Oh great :/ Go from one dying platform to another

[ArialBlue]

They should have stuck with Adobe Flash - super smooth DXVA video.

Microsoft is being d*cks with Silverlight and HTML5 has no built-in DRM support or video standard and offers worse performance and quality.

[Joey S]

Yep, wave goodbye to all your GNU/Linux users ;)

[Duffydemon]

Yep, wave goodbye to all your GNU/Linux users ;)

http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight

[Joey S]

http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight

Mono and Moonlight by extension have questionable compatibility with dotNET/Silverlight respectively. Not only that, but Mono has been abandoned by Cannonical/Ubuntu and other members of the Linux community due to waning interest and support. SuSE fired most of the Mono developers, and the project has been languishing ever since. Microsoft's pet developer, Miguel de Icaza has since started his own company, funded no doubt by Microsoft. The Linux and FOSS community is having none of the patent encumbered, proprietary platform though.

[PL_ Veteran]

Frying pan, fire, etc.

[George P Global Moderator]

Nothing wrong with switching off of flash to Silverlight since it works just fine for netflix and has smooth streaming of 1080p. And regardless of SL5 or 5.1 being the last version it doesn't matter, not like it'll stop working overnight. Of course i'm not surprised by some of the replies here, same old same old.

[ArialBlue]

Yep, wave goodbye to all your GNU/Linux users ;)

Why is this a bad thing?

They use a free non-media and non-gaming and non-general-purpose oriented OS, why should they expect everyone to bend backwards for them?

Their computers came with Windows on them, they OPTED OUT and now they are complaining?

[Kirkburn]

Have we actually got confirmation Silverlight is really about to die?

Why is this a bad thing?

They use a free non-media and non-gaming and non-general-purpose oriented OS, why should they expect everyone to bend backwards for them?

Their computers came with Windows on them, they OPTED OUT and now they are complaining?

Ignore the troll.

[George P Global Moderator]

Have we actually got confirmation Silverlight is really about to die?

No, MS hasn't said what is coming after SL5, or SL5.1 so far. I think SL as a browser only plug-in will stop it's development, but as for as a platform out of the browser like it's used now on WP7 and even Windows itself, I think it'll keep going until HTML or rather, WinRT finally steps in a replaces it in a sense.

[Guest seanseany]

I have been with Lovefilm for around 3 months or so and its a quality door to door service on DVD/Game rentals but the streaming aspect of it is pretty crap to say the least. Personally I don't think the quality is "all that", but for around ?15.00 GBP for unlimited DVD/Game rentals sent to my door its cool.

I just avoid the streaming anything , but may give it another shot with Silverlight :)

[philcruicks]

the streaming service quality is crap, hopefully this will up the quality a bit.

If not Netfilx is comming to the UK early 2012 so I may switch to them see if the quality is better.

[philcruicks]

OK the switch has happened for me...anyone know if you can hack silverlight so it stays in full screen mode when you lose focus?

I've got dual screen and with flash I had a mod which kept it full screen while I could work on the other screen.

Now I'm on silverlight I can't get it to stay in full screen...any ideas?

[George P Global Moderator]

OK the switch has happened for me...anyone know if you can hack silverlight so it stays in full screen mode when you lose focus?

I've got dual screen and with flash I had a mod which kept it full screen while I could work on the other screen.

Now I'm on silverlight I can't get it to stay in full screen...any ideas?

Yes, Go into your start menu, all programs, microsoft silverlight, and click on it to bring up the options window. Go to the permissions tab and then you should see a list of websites, and it'll either have allow or deny for it, I think it's deny by default so change it to allow and it should say in full screen when unfocused.

[philcruicks]

Yes, Go into your start menu, all programs, microsoft silverlight, and click on it to bring up the options window. Go to the permissions tab and then you should see a list of websites, and it'll either have allow or deny for it, I think it's deny by default so change it to allow and it should say in full screen when unfocused.

Cheers I'll give it a try when I get home.

[philcruicks]

annoyingly lovefilm isn't listed there...and I've tried playing a video in Chrome FF and IE just in case they handle it differently...