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Silverlight, Microsoft´s Adobe Flash Killer?

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mexapple
mexapple
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Yesterday while reading Techmeme, I discovered this article about Silverlight form Microsoft just introduced at Mix 07 in Las Vegas:

 

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/01/take-...-its-important/

 

I saw the favorable reviews and that OS X is supported and it is only a 5.3 MB download, so I decided to give it a try.

 

http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/default.aspx

 

 

It installed and works perfect in OS X and I was amazed by the demos found in the Silverlight page, video is smooth and much better quality than Flash Player, explore the demos available and some of the games like chess and others are simply amazing and the speed at which they download is incredible.

 

I am very pleasantly surprised and I believe Microsoft finally has come up with something that can truly change the web experience.

 

I would like other InsanelyMac forum members to try Silverlight and we can exchange impressions on what you think about Silverlight.

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EFI
EFI
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I was able to download with Safari just fine and it installed, but the Microsoft page does not seems to detect it? It tells me to download it.

 

Same here, but that happens for me in camino. In safari, it loads, but it doesnt show the actual content...just the frames/ page design.

 

Its good that Microsoft made it open source, and I'm glad, but If it gains serious market share, I hope they dont cripple the Mac version in order to turn the technology into a Windows enhanced experience, like they did with MSN, IE, and Windows Media Player.

 

Microsoft's biggest low blow here is YouTube (Google) which currently has the largest online database of free watchable streaming videos....and they're all encoded in Flash. I just hope they dont start propogating "Windows Silverlight Live"...or something of that sort to compete with Google.

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mexapple
mexapple
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Update your bookmarks to the Microsoft page. I was having the same problem until I updated my bookmark after I installed Silverlight, it seems to take you to a different page if you already have Silverlight installed.

 

What do you people think about Silverlight´s functionality?

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Evoken
Evoken
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Same here, but that happens for me in camino. In safari, it loads, but it doesnt show the actual content...just the frames/ page design.

 

I had that same problem and had to refresh to get it to load the content.

 

Microsoft's biggest low blow here is YouTube (Google) which currently has the largest online database of free watchable streaming videos....and they're all encoded in Flash.

 

Right, and I doubt that Google will support Microsoft on this.

 

I just hope they dont start propogating "Windows Silverlight Live"...or something of that sort to compete with Google.

 

They already launched something to compete with YouTube:

 

http://soapbox.msn.com/

 

The funny thing is that the videos are all in Flash :lol:

 

What do you people think about Silverlight´s functionality?

 

I saw the samples they provided in the website, really nothing new or that Flash cannot do already. The quality of the introduction video on the main page is low, not sure if it had to do more with compression settings than with the actual encoder. In the Fantastic 4 trailer, I found the video quality of the Flash version on the movie site to be better than it's Silverlight counterpart. Some of the pages such as the Future Microsoft navigation page popped error messages whenever you clicked on sections. The sample banner of Office 2007 was ok, but again, nothing new or that Flash cannot do already.

 

The bottom line in my opinion is that this is just another of many Microsoft's unsuccessful attempts at playing "me too". It will get some media hype and then it will just fade and Microsoft will drop it or keep it, who knows. It most certainly is no Flash killer.

 

 

Evo

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bxsci(macuser)
bxsci(macuser)
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Microsoft's biggest low blow here is YouTube (Google) which currently has the largest online database of free watchable streaming videos....and they're all encoded in Flash. I just hope they dont start propogating "Windows Silverlight Live"...or something of that sort to compete with Google.

 

i do hope that microsoft starts a youtube counterpart -- gootube may very well be the downfall of google, if microsoft is up to the challenge i would do all in my power to post copyrighted videos on different spam accounts so fast they would go down faster then a suicidal man off the empire state building

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EFI
EFI
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gootube may very well be the downfall of google...

 

Thats an interesting theory, why do you say that? Just curious.

 

 

 

Well, as for the actual performance of Silverlight, its pretty good, but I still doubt it could take on Flash to an extent of having market domination, but if it does, that would be something new. And as much as I hate to say it, Youtube is not the best measurement of Flash video quality nor capibility...infact it shows how crappy a Flash Video can really look. If you want to know what real streaming flash looks like, go to the Adobe website, go to the Creative Suite CS3 page (the fully flash designed one), and then check out the CS3 product "key features" videos. Now those show the quality that Flash is capable of.

 

Here are 2 snaps:

 

picture1ry5.png

 

picture2ud0.png

 

 

Plus one has to look at the programming side of this as well, and which one is more efficient, flexible, and overall more easier to program. Its Action Script vs .NET.

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mexapple
mexapple
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I respectfully disagree with Evo, the Fantastic 4 trailer on Silverlight BLOWS AWAY anything that i have previously seen on Flash and it plays in real time on my limited 1 Megabit ADSL line here in Mexico. I think that the fact that Netflix chose this platform for their service speaks volumes.

 

I reproduce here thoughts from Don MacAskill on Silverlight which I think hit the nail on the head, at the end find the direct link to his blog.

 

Thoughts on Silverlight

I was at MIX this week speaking on a panel about web services. Obviously, the big announcements there were around Silverlight, so I’ve been getting emails asking what I think. Here you go, just a raw brain dump:

 

No matter what happens, everyone wins. Competition is good for us. Adobe has urgency to improve Flash at a rapid rate, and Microsoft has urgency to catch up. Awesome for you and I - who cares who “wins” or if there even is a “winner”.

Silverlight looks amazing. I want to consume Netflix movies using the Silverlight interface - it’s gorgeous and fast. But I don’t want to consume Netflix movies on my PC - I want to do it on my TV. That’s why I have an Xbox 360, AppleTV, and TiVo Series 3.

I would like to develop for Silverlight just to see how neat it could be for our company, but there are two big problems:

The installation process on Mac OS X is horrendous. And we have a lot of Mac OS X customers.

Massive chicken-and-the-egg problem. My customers are not technical, and almost always just answer “No” to permission dialogs because they’ve been trained that “Yes” means “I’d love to be infected with a virus!”

I have some fairly big performance complaints about Flash in some cases, so if Silverlight doesn’t suffer from the same issues, I’ll be pretty thrilled.

Ray Ozzie & Co didn’t make nearly enough of a big deal about the fact that you can do this stuff in Python and Ruby in addition to C#. That’s huge and should have been the opening headline.

Offering to host Silverlight videos for free (4GB) is a brilliant way to speed up adoption. Good move, MS!

So, anyway, there we go. I’m excited about it and skeptical about it at the same time. I think if the Mac installation process was a breeze AND I was able to create something really compelling, I’d be willing to show my customers how great it is. So the installation ball is in Microsoft’s court right now.

 

We’ll see what happens.

 

(Oh, and whoever organizes MIX next year, can we please please please have a real grid like every other conference? I missed great sessions because there was no grid)

 

http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/2007/05/03/th...on-silverlight/

 

 

Mexapple

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RedSox
RedSox
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Yesterday while reading Techmeme, I discovered this article about Silverlight form Microsoft just introduced at Mix 07 in Las Vegas:

 

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/01/take-...-its-important/

 

I saw the favorable reviews and that OS X is supported and it is only a 5.3 MB download, so I decided to give it a try.

 

http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/default.aspx

It installed and works perfect in OS X and I was amazed by the demos found in the Silverlight page, video is smooth and much better quality than Flash Player, explore the demos available and some of the games like chess and others are simply amazing and the speed at which they download is incredible.

 

I am very pleasantly surprised and I believe Microsoft finally has come up with something that can truly change the web experience.

 

I would like other InsanelyMac forum members to try Silverlight and we can exchange impressions on what you think about Silverlight.

 

 

Its kind of old news, but none the less, if it becomes a flash killer, it would have to be as complex as Flash and as simple as Swish Max if its to be a flash killer, unless of course, which I predict will make someone a millionare, its compression scheme is so awsome that it reduces HD.

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rollcage
rollcage
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The funny thing is that the videos are all in Flash :)

 

I have a feeling that might change soon. MS has already done a huge makeover of the site, the transition to Silverlight might be a part of that change.

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Timyang
Timyang
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http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/05/02/silly-season

 

Here are some insightful remarks. I myself am not that confident about all these calling of flash killer. There are way to many would-be-killers these days, whatever happened to all these "ipod killers"? any one?

 

It's all looking great now that they are supporting Mac and Linux, but remember what did they do to windows media player on Mac? With their closed proprietary system what's stopping them from deprecating and eventually shut down silverlight for other platforms someday?

 

p.s. it should be said that the author of that post works for google

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  • 1 year later...
nvrmore100
nvrmore100
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If anyone is interested, you can now beta test the "watch instantly" portion of Netflix on your Mac:

 

http://www.netflix.com/silverlightoptin

 

That being said, this DOES not work on my hack-mac (Kalyway 10.5.2 upgraded to latest). For whatever reason the installer tells me I'm running PowerPC? Using pacifist to install doesn't help, just crashes the browser (both Safari 3 and Firefox 3) as soon as the silverlight stuff starts loading. If anyone has any idea as to how to get this to work, I'm all ears.

 

This does seem to work flawlessly on my MBP though, and this makes me happy indeed. :angel:

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sdelano
sdelano
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If anyone is interested, you can now beta test the "watch instantly" portion of Netflix on your Mac:

 

http://www.netflix.com/silverlightoptin

 

That being said, this DOES not work on my hack-mac (Kalyway 10.5.2 upgraded to latest). For whatever reason the installer tells me I'm running PowerPC? Using pacifist to install doesn't help, just crashes the browser (both Safari 3 and Firefox 3) as soon as the silverlight stuff starts loading. If anyone has any idea as to how to get this to work, I'm all ears.

 

This does seem to work flawlessly on my MBP though, and this makes me happy indeed. :P

 

Search around. You need to edit the installer package (or download one of the modified installers here on the site).

 

Here is what you can do (off the top of my head):

 

in the Silverlight-2.2.0.pkg/Content/Resources folder, edit the InstallationCheck file the following way:

 

where it says something like

 

'system_profiler SPHardwareDataType -xml | grep "Intel"'

if ....

 

 

....

 

comment out that entire section (place a "#" at the begining of the line)

 

It will work now (at least the installer). Some of us have not been able to get the player to work as there is another error with Netflix, but others have had luck. The issue seems to be stemming from the Inel q6600 Processor (but some are working)...

 

gl,

sdelano

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  • 6 months later...
fairaghi
fairaghi
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Search around. You need to edit the installer package (or download one of the modified installers here on the site).

 

Here is what you can do (off the top of my head):

 

in the Silverlight-2.2.0.pkg/Content/Resources folder, edit the InstallationCheck file the following way:

 

where it says something like

 

'system_profiler SPHardwareDataType -xml | grep "Intel"'

if ....

....

 

comment out that entire section (place a "#" at the begining of the line)

 

It will work now (at least the installer). Some of us have not been able to get the player to work as there is another error with Netflix, but others have had luck. The issue seems to be stemming from the Inel q6600 Processor (but some are working)...

 

gl,

sdelano

 

 

Sdelano, you are the man !

Removing in the pkg the section you identified, Silverlight 2 works on my Compaq EVO N610C with 10.4.11 (Pentium4, ATI Mob 7500). The video isn't exactly as smooth as Flash does, but at least it works.

 

Thanks.

Nando.

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