Streaming Media - August/September 2007 - (Page 103)

Silverlight Is No Flash Killer b y now I’m sure you’ve heard of Silverlight, the technology Microsoft recently introduced to compete directly with Adobe’s Flash Player. But do you really know what Silverlight means to interactive branding and marketing? This question has special interest to me. As the national creative director for Flash development at the consulting agency Whittman-Hart, I use Adobe’s products to create highly interactive websites, applications, and broadband channels for clients such as Toyota, Scion, AnheuserBusch, and Sony Pictures. Adobe’s Flash technology has always been the quintessential platform for defining a brand online and creating an unparalleled, immersive brand experience for connecting with consumers. Silverlight was officially unveiled in April at NAB, with additional substantial, subsequent announcements about the technology at the MIX07 conference in Las Vegas. The night after the big Silverlight announcement came out of MIX, I got this crazy idea that I needed to get to Vegas even though I didn’t have a pass to the sold-out event. At 5:45 the next morning, surprisingly enough, it still seemed like a good idea, and I was off to the Venetian. Turns out sold out means “sold out no matter who you know,” which was a testament to how much interest this technology has earned from the interactive industry. The firsthand reactions of people who attended the MIX sessions revealed that the overall consensus about Silverlight was that it has enough robust features to satisfy even the most discerning interactive developer or chief marketing officer. Some even went so far as to say that Silverlight would be a Flash killer. Now, that’s a bold statement, but is it true? Silverlight builds on the basic features of scalable vector graphics (SVG), adds in more advanced features—such as server connectivity and excellent video playback—plus Microsoft Expression Studio, a great set of tools to create Silverlight content. These tools really open the doors to this platform for experienced interactive developers and designers alike. The most significant feature that Silverlight has in competition to Flash/Flex is Windows DRM, which will be very attractive to video content owners. This can be seen in the big-league players who are the earliest adopters of the new platform: Netflix, CBS, and Major League Baseball. Add this to the fact that Silverlight works with existing Microsoft video formats and does not need to be encoded into a proprietary format, plus the fact that all the server-side components needed to stream will come with the next version of Windows Server products, and you have some excellent interactive video capabilities. Industry Perspectives In this Flash-based ad for Budweiser.com, users are taken up and down the alley when they navigate between the sections of content. Content is “located” at seven different points of interest within the alley. Example of points of interest within this shot would be the car, phone, cowboy sign, and bowling alley neon. When a user reaches a point of interest, the content panel expands and displays content. Most points of interest have easter eggs where, for instance, people will walk by or get out of a car in the background if a user is on a particular section for a period of time. By Chris Colinsky Video clips were arranged on a timeline to demonstrate how the in and out points of the clips would match up to the main alleyway clip. Essentially, there is one clip the runs the length of the alley. When a viewer reaches the point where the camera needs to move to a point of interest, a new clip is made visible. To facilitate a nonlinear experience, video clips had to be specially encoded to play forward and backward properly. The alley was shot using a 200-foot dolly track that allowed the HD camera to move smoothly up and down the length of the alley. Producers used After Effects to remove the dolly track from the scene. WWW.STREAMINGMEDIA.COM 103 http://WWW.STREAMINGMEDIA.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Streaming Media - August/September 2007

Table of Contents Sweet Sixteen Letters to the Editor Technology and Business Trends IBM Takes Webcasting to the Desktop ROI in the EDU Bank Serves Espresso, Enterprise Video Online Video Advertising: Hit or Miss MLB’s Foul Bawl A Crash Course in Flash Video Newspapers in Multimedia Metamorphosis Webcasting Large Entertainment Events: Seeing Through the Hype Webcasting With Windows Media Can’t Start A Fire . . . A WiMAX Primer Mobile Video at Last Telestream Episode Pro Grass Valley ProCoder 3 Silverlight Is No Flash Killer

Streaming Media - August/September 2007

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