Comments on: Will Silverlight make a dent?

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:34:14 +0000

I think streaming windows media is more effecient than flash. It should save us a lot of bandwidth costs on video streaming once we can use it.

It’s a bit of a pain to install (required a reboot for me). Can’t use it until enough users already have it installed.

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 12:40:56 +0000

“Will it pull an Xbox or pull a Zune?”

Are either profitable?

And WTF is that glassy jock strap logo?

By: steve

steve — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 03:02:10 +0000

The move by CBS News to Flash (including the Evening News simulcast) is a high-profile, unmitigated disaster, so the release of Silverlight couldn’t be better-timed. Hopefully, unlike Flash, it will be prove ready for prime time.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 22:54:58 +0000

What about MSNBC? You’d think they’d be leading the way on this?

By: teej

teej — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 21:38:09 +0000

Combining the reliability and support base of Windows Media streaming tech with the interactivity of Flash is a big draw for folks who thrive on live, breaking news.

Live Flash is just barely ready for prime time - the toolset isn’t there, and everybody’s just now learning how it works on an enterprise level. Until it gets its feet more firmly on the ground and develops a third-party base of applications, I can see Silverlight being the medium of choice for interactive live video.

Also, if it works as smoothly on Macs as MS claims, this will finally fix the years-long debacle that is Flip4Mac and bring Mac users back into the livestreaming fold. And a Linux client? I’m all a-flutter.

By: adm

adm — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 20:24:19 +0000

i hope the cross-platform stuff works out. like it or not, a lot of sites go with whatever MSFT offers just because it’s MSFT. this makes things really hard for Mac and Linux users (like me), who are always either tweaking or complaining. Example: TNT right now does not let you even access their video site if you do not use Windows — even though a Mac could probably play the videos if they let you through to the site. (So no “Closer” for me.)

With MLB’s current Windows Media set-up, it took me about half a day to get it to work with Linux. If Silverlight works as planned, I imagine it would be a point-and-click operation. My fear is that they will get ahead of themselves and MLB will switch over to Silverlight before the Linux software exists/is compatible, and I will be left out in the cold yet again.

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 17:24:31 +0000

The .net coders love it. If you’re currently streaming with Windows Media, it’s an easy upgrade and it’s cross platform. It’s also HD-ready. A lot of people write it off because it’s Microsoft but ask Sony about writing MS when it came to Xbox.

The real question is… Will it pull an Xbox or pull a Zune?