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Microsoft releases Silverlight 3.0

volvoshine
09 July 2009 - 18:41
131 Comments
Liked this (11)

Today Microsoft launched its latest effort to "Light up the web", Silverlight 3 which is now available for download.

Silverlight has come a long way since its version 1.0 launched in 2007. It has even attracted big players like Netflix who use it as their primary video player. 3.0 brings a host of improvements such as "Smooth Streaming" and "out of browser experiences". Web developers will also appreciate the built in support for GPU acceleration.

Silverlight 3 introduces more than 50 new features, including 3D support, GPU acceleration, H.264 video support and out-of-the-browser capabilities to Silverlight.. The out-of-browser support will enable developers to build applications that work like Adobe's AIR plugin. Dramatic video performance and quality improvements are also included.

One of my personal favorite features of 3.0 is the inclusion of Microsoft's Smooth Streaming, the development of which was spearheaded by the Zune team. First shown at this year's E3, Smooth streaming allows you to watch 720P+ video instantly... with no buffering. You can see sample of how it works at the official site http://www.iis.net/media/experiencesmoothstreaming .Silverlight & Smooth Streaming was most recently used during Michael Jackson's memorial service at the Staples Center live in Los Angeles. The quality and scaling was amazing, it could take the Live stream from sub-YouTube quality to 720P+ in a matter of seconds .

Only time will tell if Silverlight can make market share progress against Flash, but if 3.0 is any indication of future releases of Silverlight. Flash may want to start keeping an eye in its rearview mirror.

I ran some quick unscientific tests to see how Silverlight & Flash stacked up when it came to CPU useage. They where tested on a Quad Core PC with 4 GB's of ram. I tested a Youtube "HQ" stream Vs Silverlight Smooth Streaming in HD. As you can see from the results, Silverlight not only had lower CPU usage, but it also used the four cores more uniformly.

Silverlight 3.0 is available for download right now at http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/resources/install.aspx

Comments (131)

  1. 2Cold Scorpio - 09 July 2009 - 18:54

    Cool! Thanks for the heads up; I just installed in on my Win7 RC installation.

  2. +TCLN Ryster - 09 July 2009 - 21:04

    Me too, the quality of that demo video on the iis.net site is absolutely awesome... looks lovely at full screen (1440x900) and the fact it streams almost instantly is astounding. Good work MS!

  3. excalpius - 10 July 2009 - 02:55

    Now this is funny.

    Using http://www.iis.net/media/experiencesmoothstreaming

    Under Vista 64...the cleanest, smoothest, fastest playing browser was...

    Google Chrome

    Opera was jerky
    IE8-32 couldn't keep the data stream maxxed
    Firefox 3.5 was jerky and had the slowest frame rate

    At least it's Apples to Apples. 8)

  4. Septimus - 10 July 2009 - 10:46

    Something up with your installs then. Fx3.5, IE8, Chrome, Opera, all 25FPS constant.

    On OSX - Safari, Fx3.5 - 24fps constant. Opera splutters for a little bit then settles at 24.

    Plenty of bandwidth so that never changed.

  5. +Jdawg683 - 10 July 2009 - 12:53

    excalpius said,
    Now this is funny.

    Using http://www.iis.net/media/experiencesmoothstreaming

    Under Vista 64...the cleanest, smoothest, fastest playing browser was...

    Google Chrome

    Opera was jerky
    IE8-32 couldn't keep the data stream maxxed
    Firefox 3.5 was jerky and had the slowest frame rate

    At least it's Apples to Apples. 8)


    i just played it in FF 3.5 w/o a hitch. using vista 64-bit too.

  6. The_Decryptor - 11 July 2009 - 01:34

    Considering the plugin handles rendering the video and the browser has nothing to do with it, it's not surprising that it plays fine in different browsers.

    What will effect it is you doing stuff in the background (When I was playing it, an app popped up an UAC dialog, it cut the stream quality down due to the sudden CPU usage)

  7. JohnCz - 09 July 2009 - 19:03

    Awesome news...much faster release schedule than I would have thought. I think this bodes well for Office Web Apps and Live Mesh App Store being delivered (at least in beta form) in the near future. As for marketshare, I think it is doing decently..they are having a easier time of it compared to say, search. Silverlight "Enhanced" versions of Office Web Apps will certainly grow "consumer" marketshare. Live Mesh Apps could help grow "developer/partner" marketshare. In any case, the future looks bright for Silverlight.

  8. GP007 - 09 July 2009 - 19:21

    As long as MS moves fast they have a chance to do a lot in the area. I just hope they can get WinMo moving quicker as well.

  9. JohnCz - 09 July 2009 - 19:24

    I couldn't agree more. I sort of wish they standarized around the Windows 7 kernel. I think they are going to need to something along these lines eventually.

  10. GP007 - 09 July 2009 - 20:52

    Seeing as how they delayed WinMo7 and released 6.5 outta nowhere as more of a stop-gap I think they'll be doing lots of core changes and even more UI changes for 7. Just needed more time.

  11. Lloyd Sparkes - 10 July 2009 - 19:42

    GP007 said,
    Seeing as how they delayed WinMo7 and released 6.5 outta nowhere as more of a stop-gap I think they'll be doing lots of core changes and even more UI changes for 7. Just needed more time.


    Actually Windows Mobile 7 is expected to RTM October, and be on phones next year, so not much longer to wait

  12. GP007 - 10 July 2009 - 23:04

    That's kinda quick, I don't think 6.5 has RTM'd yet? No devices have it yet, or showing it off even if they're not going to be out for a few months.

  13. +Ridlas - 09 July 2009 - 19:03

    Wow, I loved the video demo. And the Smooth Streaming thing worked great! Good Job Microsoft!

  14. guruparan - 10 July 2009 - 15:40

    Ridlas said,
    Wow, I loved the video demo. And the Smooth Streaming thing worked great! Good Job Microsoft!


    +1

  15. prabir - 09 July 2009 - 19:07

    gr8 one MS. now waiting for win7 next week. It would be great to have Silverlight 3 preinstalled with IE8 for Win7.

  16. JohnCz - 09 July 2009 - 19:28

    They probably won't be able to pre-install SL3 with Windows 7. However, certain aspects of Windows Live do use SL for enhanced capabilities. So I can see them, without legal hassles, making SL part of the installation package. It may already be, I don't recall.

  17. Mike415 - 09 July 2009 - 21:53

    JohnCz said,
    They probably won't be able to pre-install SL3 with Windows 7. However, certain aspects of Windows Live do use SL for enhanced capabilities. So I can see them, without legal hassles, making SL part of the installation package. It may already be, I don't recall.

    Just now I saw my updates included Windows Live add-ons, which installs Silverlight with it.

  18. Lloyd Sparkes - 10 July 2009 - 19:44

    Pre Installing it with IE8 on Windows 7 would be great, but im sure Adobe wouldnt like it(Anti-Trust Style)

  19. The_Decryptor - 11 July 2009 - 01:37

    Doesn't Windows already come with Flash? (The demo in XP used Flash, so out of the box it had to include the IE plugin, fairly sure Vista is the same, just without the crappy demo)

  20. omnicoder - 09 July 2009 - 19:11

    Good. Get rid of stupid buggy resource-hogging flash already.

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