14 DAY TRIAL // The Silverlight Media Framework has evolved to version 2.0 and is now available for download via CodePlex, Microsoft’s repository for open source projects. The Silverlight Media Framework is itself an open source project designed to streamline the deployment, and customization of scalable media players designed to permit the delivery of content through the Redmond company’s IIS Smooth Streaming technology. At the core of the Silverlight Media Framework is the Smooth Streaming Client, formerly "Smooth Streaming Player Development Kit". However, the Silverlight Media Framework offers devs additional features compared to the Smooth Streaming Client, and even more now that version 2.0 is available.
“The SMFv2 release introduces a whole new, more modular architecture with an extensive plug-in API for 3rd-party developers and partners. It will also enable developers to selectively exclude libraries that aren't needed in their projects in order to avoid unnecessary file size increases. The v2 framework will include plug-ins for Timed Text (DFXP),URL frame linking, a metadata framework, support for the Microsoft Silverlight Analytics Framework, support for multiple audio tracks, improved bitrate monitoring, support for Silverlight 4 global styling, a JavaScript API, a logging plug-in, and a host of other new features. It also takes advantage of the new Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) in Silverlight 4,” reads a description of the changes in Silverlight Media Framework 2.0 (SMFv2).
Still, SMFv2 is nothing more than a step in the evolution of the project. Upcoming versions of the Silverlight Media Framework will bring to the table even more features, including support for such advertising standards as VAST, MAST and VPAID, for which the plugin API will be leveraged. Additional enhancements planned for the future involve a metadata framework, multi-SSME improvements, but also support for playback in offline scenarios, including for DRM content.
“If you aren’t familiar with it, it is a Silverlight framework encapsulating the best practices for media playback for Silverlight applications. It is both a framework and, in v2, they also provided compiled simple player XAPs that you can just drop in HTML. If you are building apps, you’ll want to take a look at the framework in more detail, but if you want a solid media player experience grab the players too,” noted Tim Heuer, program manager for Microsoft Silverlight.