Silverlight 3 debuts ahead of Friday's launch

The final version of Silverlight 3 has been released to the Web, a day ahead of the product's launch event in San Francisco.

The release, noted by enthusiast site Neowin, marks Microsoft's latest effort to take on Adobe's Flash.

Microsoft detailed Silverlight 3 at the Mix09 event in March, releasing a beta version of the software.

Among the product's new features is technology that allows the software to utilize a PC's hardware to accelerate graphics processing. It also allows for programs that run outside a browser on both the PC and Mac.

NBC has said it will use Silverlight to broadcast the 2010 Winter Olympics from Vancouver. The technology will allow the Games to be broadcast in 720p HD quality as well as provide a TiVo-like ability to pause and rewind a live stream.

[ikramerica--2008]

Will it be less of a resource hog on a Mac? Will it run on Netbooks in full screen mode? Right now, no chance. I assume that if it's able to take advantage of hardware, even the lowly GMA950 is included?

[Seaspray0]

It runs great on my "crappy" PC laptop in full screen running windows.

[Seaspray0]

What kind of resolution are you trying to download? HD?

[Vegaman_Dan]

Considering it works just fine in Win7 on a netbook with 1024x600 resolution, then that's good enough. The only limitations are hardware, not software.

As for being a resource hog on a Mac, not sure how much more baggage will be required to run on OS X. I expect there will be more, just as Quicktime takes up more resouces on a PC than on OS X.

[kelmon]

Put it this way, in my testing Silverlight 2 was considerably more efficient than Adobe Flash 10 on a Mac, although that is hardly a ringing endorsement.

Personally, I'd much rather have a simple QuickTime H.264 video stream than either Flash or Silverlight but if I had to choose between them then I'd go for Silverlight, despite the fact that choosing Microsoft over Adobe makes me feel dirty.

This is certainly not to say that Silverlight is good - just that Adobe Flash is unbelievably crap on the Mac. Why Adobe are unable to achieve what Microsoft has in just a couple of years is quite beyond me.

How about a link?

[jessiethe3rd]

Absolutely.... simply... fantastic!
http://www.iis.net/media/experiencesmoothstreaming

This is a link to the movie - wow oh wow. Of course those with an Xbox 360 are experiencing this benefits already - I can stream 720p without a hickup. Amazing technology!

[Williame789]

Hulu should use Silverlight now.

[catchall]

Hulu should offer Silverlight now.
I hate going to a site and having no choice about formats. I simply skip things that require QuickTime (the POS it is)
And I'm sure those that like QT feel the same way about Silverlight only sites...

[ikramerica--2008]

Considering I can stream HD videos using 35% of the processing power using QT on a Netbook, but can't get Silverlight 2 to even play back normal Netflix videos without stuttering as it uses nearly 80% of the processor, you can call QT a POS, but Silverlight 2 was twice the POS.

Silverlight 3 adds H.264 support, so maybe that will improve things.

[Vegaman_Dan]

@ikramerica--2008:

It would appear you may need to service your system or take it to a professional technician. I have none of the problems you described on my Acer Aspire One and the netbooks all have nearly identical system specs.

Could you describe your issues a bit more clearly and detailed? Perhaps we can help you with your system issues.

[rmullen0]

The video and audio codecs should be standardized without patents like what they are trying to do for HTML 5. That way there can be a single open standard and users won't have to use one proprietary format or another. Unfortunately, that's not what the big vendors want, so, they're stonewalling it.

[jessiethe3rd]

Yes that's right - Microsoft spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop a solution for streaming web video and now that they've spent all that money developing they should hand it over for free in the spirit of open source.... great idea!!! Gimmie a break.

[kelmon]

@rmullen0

I think the problem at the moment is that the open-source alternatives simply aren't very good at the moment. They either need to improve to the point that they deliver the performance of proprietary codecs or one of the manufacturers is persuaded release their product under an open-source license.

[lvcsslacker]

Excellent! I do recall it being used for the 2008 summer olympics as well... aside from me having a craptastic connection, it was great.

[DMAN3k]

Silverlight is way better than flash in terms of performance and power efficiency (for the guy who brought up netbooks).

But I'm for avoiding more plugins and just deal with HTML5.

[ddesy]

Really? When it comes to video, Silverlight has always paled greatly when compared with Flash. Video tearing and lack of hardware acceleration caused trouble. Just ask anyone who streams Netflix!

Perhaps Silverlight 3 will actually be worthwhile, maybe not.

[dhavleak]

heh..

I stream Netflix (PC and xbox) -- Silverlight rocks my friend!

[ikramerica--2008]

sorry DMAN and Dhav- but you are wrong. Streaming in Silverlight on a netbook is the weakest link. Flash works most of the time without any stuttering. QT/H.264 is the most efficient. Maybe S3 will solve this.

As for xBox and PC streaming, well yeah, I can stream all formats equally well on those kind of platforms. It's the netbooks, with limited resources, where the differences are really evident.

[Vegaman_Dan]

@ikramerica--2008:

"sorry DMAN and Dhav- but you are wrong. Streaming in Silverlight on a netbook is the weakest link."

Let it be known that you are the one having this issue- I have never seen this problem on any the netbooks I work on, and I haven't read anything about this online. It may be a very much isolated case of your own system configuration.

It is posible other people have had trouble too. It just isn't known very well. The problems you describe I cannot reproduce on my rather generic Acer Aspire One netbook. It just works fine.

[ikramerica--2008]

Silverlight is using 50% of the processor on a core 2 duo santa rosa 2.2 to display netflix in full screen.

Vegaman, I you can claim what you want, but you routinely exaggerate and make stuff up, especially when it comes to Apple, so why should I believe you exactly?

But you must do good business ripping off customers with $1200 MacBook Air replacement screens.

[lennie22]

I stream netflix all the time, and it's really great.

[kelmon]

Silverlight is much more efficient for streaming video on my MacBook Pro when compared to the abomination that is Flash. I'm no fan of Microsoft but I must credit them for producing something that Adobe should have done years ago.

[4score20]

"The final version of Silverlight 3 has been released to the Web"

Where exactly?

[jessiethe3rd]

It appears to be an non-intrusive update to service versus a client update.

Check out:
http://www.iis.net/media/experiencesmoothstreaming

[ikramerica--2008]

I've already downloaded and installed it. A better written news article had an actual link to the download page.

[jessiethe3rd]

Can someone post a link as to where to download Silverlight 3?

[rmullen0]

Here's the link to the Silverlight 3 SDK. I don't know if there's a link just for the runtime.There should be, but, I don't know what it is. Note, unless you are a developer, it might not do you any good. Silverlight apps need to be built with it in order to take advantage of it. i.e. if Netflix is using Silverlight 2, installing Silverlight 3 won't do any good until Netflix updates their app.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=2050e580-f1d5-4040-bb09-e6185591b6b5

[rmullen0]

One other thing, you shouldn't have to download it and install it separately. If you go to a site that has a Siliverlight 3 app on it, is should prompt you to install it if it isn't already installed.

[lennie22]

SL3 it will be windows update as optional, so it won't be too far to get.

[makryger]

Wow, that is an impresive video, jessiethe3rd. Maybe Hulu should try out Silverlight. I would much rather have subtly reduced image quality, like they show there, instead of the bumpy ride that Hulu is right now.

[lennie22]

the image quallity depends on your connection.....you can pause it and wait for it to load so you're image quality will be good (if your connection is slow)...or just watch it right up and the quality will gradually get better as the video goes on

[codynews]

F me running. Damn that URL movie is bad ass. Anyone who thinks Silverlight isn't as good as Flash or the pile which is quicktime needs to check that out.

Cody

[kelmon]

With all due respect, QuickTime on the Mac platform is wonderful and I would select it over Flash or Silverlight for streaming video any time. It will be interesting to see how well QuickTime X runs in September...

[enoch861]

The funny thing about these quicktime comments is that: for the majority of users (Windows) Quicktime is a piece of junk. This thing can't even play videos in full screen. You also have to pay for the features that you get free with silverlight.
Silverlight or Quicktime. Silverlight please.
Not to mention Silverlight has very good developer tools and the such using something like Expression Studio 2.
And for those of you who prefer Quicktime, have you even seen the features that Silverlight offers? Have you even watched the SmoothStreaming demo?
Because quite simply, Silverlight kicks ass. and is better than Flash or Quicktime. Best of all, it uses low system resouces unlike Flash and Quicktime. Flash actually freezes systems for goodness sake!

-Enoch

[celticbrewer]

Who uses quicktime to stream anything? I honestly haven't noticed it anywhere?

That said, it doesn't matter how good or bad QT is if it doesn't provide content I'm interested in.

Generally spreaking, yes QT on a PC is a POS. My digital camera takes MOVs and I just reencode them rather than install that junk version of the software on my computer.

[streamOG]

Good coverage Ina. Hey BTW aren't you a "He" not a "She" ?

[streamOG]

ugh ignore my previous comment. I just read your updated bio. Please ignore.

[pretenderkc]

Ina is neither a he nor a she.
in the BINARY world, Ina falls in the FUZZY LOGIC territory!!! :-)

[jmugatu]

Now if only all video plug-ins would offload their processing onto the GPUs. And yes, that includes the integrated chipsets.

[DrtyDogg]

I thought that was one of the big improvements for 3.0. . .

"Among the new features of Silverlight 3 is the ability to tap a computer's graphics processor to offer hardware acceleration of the video (both PC and Mac)."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10199108-56.html

[superswiss]

Smooth Streaming works with Silverlight 2.0 as well, but to get the client upgraded to 3.0, go here.

http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/resources/install.aspx

[rmullen0]

Yeah, if you do a view source on the video link mentioned above, it has a minimum version of 2. So, that isn't even Silverlight 3. Or, doesn't require it anyways.

[scdecade]

Wow, that's incredible.

[rturner2]

Doesn't Silverlight compete with Adobe Flex and not really Flash?

[rmullen0]

Adobe Flex basically is Flash. It uses the Flash runtime. I think Adobe renamed Flex to Flash in the next version. i.e. The deveopment environment for Flex is called Flex Builder. A colleage of mine told me that they renamed it to Flash Builder in the next version (4?).

[shellcodes_coder]

Competes with both :)

[4score20]

Thanks for the link, jessiethe3rd. That was a really nice movie.

[shellcodes_coder]

Unlike flash, Silverlight runs in a sand boxed environment. Another innovation from Microsoft :)

[keoz2707]

www.seethelight.net is thje launch site, btw silverlight ROCKS!!

[slapppy]

Another attempt from Microsoft to lock the net to their Windows monopoly. Flash is everywhere, Flash is successful, so what do you expect from Microsoft? Copy it and pump money forever till they win and lock Windows to it. LOL

[ExWinUser]

Whatever, MS innovative? That's like saying Republicans are faithful to their wives. Silverlight is an inferior product. Adobe, will continue to deliver innovative products while MS will continue to copy whatever Adobe Flash does. Silverlight will have its little community of developers, but the Big Boys will stick with Adobe Flash!

[DMAN3k]

I dunno how delusional you are, but Flash absolutely sucks in terms of performance and power consumption.

[Swaf137]

Lets Try To Keep Politics Out Of This. And Settle Down... Its Just a Program. If It Works Woopdee doo! We Now Have To Update Silver light vs updating Flash. Personally I'll Try it. Just For Something New. If You Want to be a Belligerent ******* go ahead their a dime a dozen on the net but atleast give em props. it took someone a lot of hard work and sleepless nights to get it this far. So If You Could Do The world a favor by settling down and shutting up... Please...

[celticbrewer]

Ah, my favorite type of troll!! The Apple consumer, Liberal democrat... and I bet you drive a Honda, too. They're the people who think everything they do/think is right and will break out petty taunts and lies when confronted with facts that are opposite to their own beliefs. Go stick your head in the sand and keep telling yourself that you're the best-- and we'll keep laughing at you.

[digish777]

It is nice. The movie: http://www.iis.net/media/experiencesmoothstreaming

did not know, movies could be played this way. it is so smooth. and the slider moves to any place you want it to. plays the movie fast from the place the cursor is lifted. does not know why the silver light is not implement in movie playing in other sites. may be people are very much used to flash, would not want ot get out. ,be linux is the reason.