Comments on: Silverlight not so Flash for Microsoft

By: Jane

Jane — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 09:50:44 +0000

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By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 08:10:34 +0000

I’m curious, does Silverlight offer video card accelerated video? Because that’s the major issue with Flash – playing Hulu/iplayer etc on a slower machine in full screen is a real pain and uses up 100% while the video card takes a nap.

By: John

John — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 18:28:38 +0000

It’s actually a very clever move….

Microsoft gets all the new (Flash-happy) visitors to its site, and are suitably hooked on the site. Then X months later they simply say we are enhancing our site with Silverlight so download this harmless little add-in. Then they just have managed to get a large chunk of the population over to Silverlight.

Not a bad approach.

By: Muck

Muck — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:56:37 +0000

oh and before you answer, check out this site
http://www.shinedraw.com/flash-vs-silverlight-gallery/
Many many comparisons and Silverlight holds it’s own. This was based on Silverlight 2.
I particularly like the one where Flash achieves 64 frames per second compared with Silverlight’s 94 fps.
I dislike misinformed comments

By: Muck

Muck — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:29:48 +0000

“SL version 3 offers a microscopic fraction of the functionality of the Flash Platform”
Oh really? you’ll have to let me know what large chunk of Flash it misses out on

By: mike-boni

mike-boni — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:04:13 +0000

Well, the short answer is that Silverligt has a long way to go before catching up with FLV. Besides, video is only one aspect–SL version 3 offers a microscopic fraction of the functionality of the Flash Platform. That said, hopefully some competition will keep Adobe innovative

By: John Dowdell

John Dowdell — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:38:30 +0000

It’s plausible… backend workflows are an underconsidered aspect of debates about clientside video. Last year the BBC Internet blog had a strong description of the work required before a video is served:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/03/bbc_iplayer_on_iphone_behind_t.html

And here’s a description of the technical workflows behind video for the Beijing Olympics:
http://www.streamingmedia.com/r/printerfriendly.asp?id=10405

That’s my guess of what “existing technology” conveys… they’re already set up to produce video in a certain way, and changing those backstage workflows is not an insignificant bit of work.

(btw, Adobe does have a garden, but I don’t think it can have a wife.

jd/adobe

By: Dave Poyser

Dave Poyser — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:51:38 +0000

I believe it translates to something like:

“While we’d really like to use Silverlight we haven’t really got much experience deploying it this type of environment, and because we’d like to rush this project out of the door quite quickly, we thought we’d use the tried and tested method. We’d like to state that it has nothing to do with the fact that we poached the bloke from the BBC who’s already done a nifty job with this type of thing. It should also avoid any knocks on the door from the EC, should opera go crying to them again. We may tart the interface up with some Silverlight at a later date.”

and

“We haven’t a clue what we’re doing, but we hope we get enough feedback from the community at large to give us an idea what we should have done in the first place”