Microsoft has just released Silverlight3 today, available for download from Microsoft.com/Silverlight. This version supports the new IE8/FireFox3.5/Safari4 browsers, and adds thousands of new API’s. But evidently taking an opportunity to get a lead on the Flash GPU Acceleration initiative, it also supports:
- Media: GPU hardware acceleration, new codec support (H.264, AAC, MPEG-4), raw bitstream Audio/Video API, and improved logging for media analytics
- Graphics: GPU Acceleration and hardware compositing, perspective 3D, bitmap and pixel API, pixel shader effects, and Deep Zoom improvements
GPU Hardware acceleration for h264 video, among other things. They’ve also integrated “Smooth Streaming”:
In terms of streaming, Microsoft says Silverlight 3 brings “high-definition video in full-screen mode, with stutter-free live and on-demand video” to the table. There’s also Smooth Streaming (demo), which allows one to start playing an HD video at any point in time, instantaneously. Version 3 allows developers to create Web applications that can exist outside the browser. How does it work? Open a browser page. Launch the Silverlight application. Close the browser. The Silverlight program lives on.
Could this tip the tables in favor of Silverlight? A little bit, but Flash still has a huge marketshare to overcome.
Guess I’m gonna have to start learning SilverLight.