14 DAY TRIAL // With the launch of Silverlight 2 for Windows and Mac OS X, Microsoft applauded its alternative to Adobe Flash for the fast pace of adoption, indicating that the technology had been deployed on over one in four machines worldwide. With room to grow, Silverlight is gaining more and more traction, and an illustrative example in this regard is the Sky Player TV online TV service. Sky Player TV will use a combination of Silverlight and PlayReady technologies in order to deliver TV programs online to U.K. and Ireland subscribers.
“Microsoft Silverlight and PlayReady allowed us to build and launch this innovative service quickly, easily, and in a package that provides consumers with even more flexibility in how they engage with Sky content,” revealed Griff Parry, director of On-Demand, BSkyB. “As technologies that can reliably enable the rich delivery of high-quality protected content to both Windows-based PCs and Macs, the use of Silverlight and PlayReady was key in helping us provide our customers with more choice and control over their viewing.”
Live linear channels and video-on-demand content is now available through Sky Player TV, thanks to Silverlight and PlayReady. According to Microsoft, content delivered by the service is guaranteed to be protected by Silverlight DRM powered by PlayReady. Moreover, because of the use of PlayReady, the Sky Player TV service can make available Windows Media DRM-protected content to users of Windows and Macs.
“We brought technologies like Silverlight and PlayReady to market with this type of immersive experience and fast-to-market execution in mind,” added Chadd Knowlton, general manager of the Content Access and Protection Group at Microsoft. “Working closely with Sky allowed us to showcase the unique capabilities of our technologies and play a role in allowing consumers to receive and engage with their favorite TV content in a new way.”
Silverlight 2 RTW (2.0.31005.0) is available for download here.