Adobe Flash vs. Silverlight 3

Till now ‘Adobe Flash’ has been the de-facto standard for most streaming activity be it CNET, You Tube or BBC. We find that most of the times Adobe Flash player fails to deliver speed, audio capability, and video consistency. Microsoft promises to break these shackles by introduction of Microsoft Silverlight 3.0. Some advantages of Silverlight 3.0 over Adobe Flash

· Silverlight supports the WPF animation model, which is not only time based instead of frame based, but lets you define the start and end conditions , it will figure out how to get there for you. No need to deal with matrixes like in flash. Also no need to calculate positions on various frames. It just works.

· Silverlight lets you embed true type font information directly into your projects, and download that information with the downloader object.

· In addition to supporting a rich set of development languages (VB.Net, C#), debugging too has become relatively simpler.

· XAML is declarative while ActionScript is imperative. Using imperative languages to build UIs goes back to the early days of DOS and Windows, when developers had to manage all of the API nuances when interacting with graphical panes.

· Silverlight does not require video codec to run industry standard videos like .WMV

· Silverlight supports scalable video formats from HD to mobile and Hardware-assisted editing and encoding solutions. It also supports Scalable full screen video.

· Silverlight provides End-to-end server and application platform.

Moonlight = Open Source Silverlight 3

After coming to spotlight recently for donating around 20,000 lines of code to open source community, Microsoft has started with the open source foundation called ‘CodePlex’ (not to confuse this to their open source code sharing website of the same name).

This being the driving force behind an open source implementation of the Silverlight browser plug-in called Moonlight. Moonlight which is based on Mono (an open source implementation of .Net) is being jointly developed by Microsoft and Novell to:

• Allow Silverlight applications to run on Linux
• Offer a Linux SDK(software development kit) for Silverlight applications
• Use the existing Silverlight engine to develop desktop applications.

Like Silverlight, Moonlight manifests as a runtime environment for browser-based rich Internet applications (RIAs) and, similarly, adds to animation, video playback and Vector Graphics capabilities. Developers are also creating desktop Widgets called “dekslets” to extend Moonlight applications beyond the browser.

Silverlight is not only emerging as competition to Flash, but is also revolutionizing browser plug ins with continual changes. 

Watch this space for more ……..

— Pranav Deo

xoriant

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1. Silverlight 3.0: RIA made Simple Microsoft Silverlight 3 is a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. It extends the...

Silverlight has definitely raised the bar for browser plug-ins and development environments. Unlike Flash, Silverlight offers us a real IDE, true separation between design and development (the best designer isn’t necessarily the best programmer, and vice versa), real programming languages, and an efficient, high-performance, almost infinitely versatile browser plug-in.

Interesting features of Silverlight 3

· Fully supported by Visual Studio and Expression Blend

This massively changes the way a programmer looks at the code. There is negligible learning required with regard to programming language. A C# programmer can certainly write a code behind and easily create a XAML. Visual Studio 2008 incorporates designing a Silverlight application up to a certain limit, but designers looking for profound ‘looks’ can definitely seize help of an advanced IDE like ‘Expression Blend 3’ to create a attractive looking Plug-in.

· Out of Browser support allowing web applications to work on desktop

The Out of Browser support in Silverlight 3 enables developers to create Silverlight applications which can run both inside and outside of the browser.  By making some minor level changes to APPMANIFEST.XML, an application can be successfully run out of browser.

· Significant graphics improvements including 3D graphic support

Perspective 3D support in Silverlight will now allow developers to use 2D elements to create a 3D experience.  Perspective 3D is also a great way to better utilize screen real estate making the application user interface immensely attractive.

· Smooth video Streaming

Silverlight Streaming are services that allows users and developers to host their Silverlight content and apps with Microsoft, taking advantage of their extensive global network of datacenters and their content delivery network. Best of all, this service is free, and while currently it is only in alpha it allows users to upload up to 4GB of content, and to stream up to 1 million minutes of online video delivery at 700kbps of around DVD quality.

· Improvement in RIA development productivity

Silverlight 3 has over 60 high-quality, fully skinnable and customizable out-of-the-box controls such as charting and media, new layout containers such as dock and viewbox, and controls such as autocomplete, treeview and datagrid. Attention-grabbing element being that these controls come with nine professional designed themes and the source code can be modified/recompiled or utilized as-is. This means less development time and better looking app.

Silverlight has certainly made RIA simpler & as Microsoft puts it, it can surely “Light up the Web”

— Pranav Deo

xoriant

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