14 DAY TRIAL // Silverlight has certainly come a long way since Build 1.0.20816.00 was released on September 4, 2007, and just as sure, Microsoft’s alternative to Adobe Flash has a long way ahead of it, still. The evolution of Silverlight is taking the technology to additional screens, and up next are Broadcom BCM7420- and Intel CE4100-based devices. Microsoft will use the 2010 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show planned for the coming week in order to announce a partnership with system-on-chip (SOC) partners Intel and Broadcom that will bring Silverlight to a variety of new consumer devices, including set-top boxes, connected TVs, and Blu-ray Disc players.
Together with Intel and Broadcom, the Redmond company will offer support for reference designs that will ultimately give the green light to a new range of Silverlight-based media experiences right in the living room. The promise from Microsoft is that content providers will be able to leverage a single runtime platform, in concert with the necessary server infrastructure and free programming frameworks, to put together and serve new offerings.
Broadcom BCM7420- and Intel CE4100-based devices will sport a range of capabilities including adaptive bitrate streaming, DVR-like functionality, and Microsoft PlayReady DRM support for high-definition programming, through the marriage of Silverlight and IIS Smooth Streaming.
“Our vision is to bring Silverlight to every screen, and as we continue to expand the capabilities and resources for Silverlight and IIS Media Services, it’s exciting to see the amazing ways our customers use these technologies to deliver outstanding media experiences for their end users,” Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the .NET Developer Platform at Microsoft, noted. “We’ve brought together great tools and a great platform to provide content owners and broadcasters a great business opportunity.”
Come next week, the software giant will preview IIS Media Services 4, which brings to the table new features such as “multi-platform delivery with content protection, smooth Multicast support and integrated encoding support,” according to a Microsoft spokesperson. However, the showcasing of IIS Media Services 4 will be accompanied by the delivery of IIS Smooth Streaming Client 1.0 and the IIS Smooth Streaming Format Software Development Kit 1.0 and IIS Smooth Streaming Porting Kit 1.0.
Microsoft has also worked to streamline the creation of Silverlight-based media content, by reducing the amount of coding needed. Silverlight Media Framework 2.0 is an open source solution for which the Redmond company charges no royalties or fees, and that simplifies the creation of media experiences.
The official launch of Silverlight 4 is also planned for the coming week.
Silverlight 4 Release Candidate (RC) Build 4.0.50303.0 is available for download here.