Bob,

Microsoft says you need to use Expression Encoder 2 (which is part of Expression Studio 2 package) to create "Smooth Streaming" video, and it must be hosted on Windwos 2008 server with IIS7 and Smooth Streaming installed..

I already did this for our college Intranet. Works great. Original video was in HDV format from my HDR-HC1. Expression Encoder 2 didn't have any problems converting HDV into WMV. Codec used by Encoder is VC1. Next version of Encoder (and Silverlight 3) will have support for h.264 codec.

Thanks for the info.
Watching the demo I had the smoothest viewing experience of anything at that res I've ever had. Some of the Flash encoded content I've tried to watch from the USA I've simply had to give up on. Worse of all is of late I've found if I pause playback to let it buffer locally the server stops streaming so I gain nothing.
If whatever M$ are cooking up with this if it pans out like it should it could gain serious traction. So far I've watched some impressive tricks done using Silverlight running on both Windoz and OSX, it's also ported to Linux so I guess everyone gets to come to the party for once.

Bob.

It would be great to have a streaming standard that does not have waffley audio video synch as flash does.

I've never understood how to work with Silverlight despite reading up on it from the MS website & downloading a while back. I couldn't even figure out how to "open" whatever it was I downloaded... is it just a free version of software that stays on my computer that creates web video files that I then upload?

Netflix uses it for streaming movies ("Watch Instantly" instead of waiting for the DVD).

I've been very satisfied with it.

There's a richness to the image, and I can do drag-searches for any part of a movie.

Quite impressive, IMHO.

CClub,

What exactly did yo try to do with Silverlight?

"I've never understood how to work with Silverlight despite reading up on it from the MS website & downloading a while back."

If all you want to do is stream a video from your ASP.NET website, it's real pretty easy, but start with the free version of Visual Studio: http://www.asp.net/downloads/essential/ The "Expression" series of software provides for much more functionality, but, IMHO, has a much steeper learning curve.

Here's a mediaplayer tutorial: http://www.asp.net/learn/3.5-SP1/video-243.aspx

Good Luck,
...Jerry

I guess I was assuming that it was like a Divx or Flash encoder/player. I'm not even sure what Silverlight IS... I probably gave up on it too soon, but I was expecting a piece of software that I could open, import a Vegas rendered file, and Silverlight would spit out a file that would play easily through a viewer's browser (with a plugin that is also just as easily downloadable for John Q as the Flash player is).

Downloaded and tried it today - the video in the link above looks great - not sure how I am supposed to use this though? I guess whenever source material is in Silverlight I can play it on IE8 and don't need to worry about it?

If you want the Silverlight experience then you do need to install Silverlight. As far as I know it doesn't use any new codecs, rather it's a framework for content delivery, think interactive TV. For example watch a fashion show in realtime and click the model to buy the clothes.
It's big drawcard over Flash apart from easier interactivity is in live streaming and the ability to support an almost unlimited number of connections.

" I guess whenever source material is in Silverlight I can play it on IE8 and don't need to worry about it? "

As far as I know that's it. If you want to use Silverlight to deliver content then I think you need to delve fairly deep and I'm the wrong guy to answer questions about that side of it.

Bob.

"...but I was expecting a piece of software that I could open, import a Vegas rendered file, and Silverlight would spit out a file that would play easily through a viewer's browser (with a plugin that is also just as easily downloadable for John Q as the Flash player is)."

Actually, it's even simpler than this... you can use the .wmv rendered in Vegas directly. Don't need to go thru a conversion. Just play the video directly on your website using the Silverlight player. One restriction (and this could be major), to the best of my knowledge you must have an ASP.NET webpage. However, the resultant webpage (& video) displays nicely in IE, Firefox, Safari & others.

Installing the browser add-on is as simple as clicking on the icon that looks like this:


Here's an example I did for my daughter: http://www.erinamende.com

...Jerry

what's an ASP.net web page?

"what's an ASP.net web page?"

Hmmm. The simple answer is ASP.NET is a technology created by Microsoft that allows the user to create Webpages that utilize server side programming code in Visual Basic or C#. You can recognize an ASP.NET webpage because it has a .aspx extension e.g. Default.aspx. You develop ASP.NET websites using a Microsoft product called "Visual Studio" (I think Dreamweaver and possibly other platforms can also be used to develop ASP.NET pages).

For more detailed info look here: http://www.asp.net

...Jerry

amendegw wrote:
"One restriction (and this could be major), to the best of my knowledge you must have an ASP.NET web page."

amendegw,

This is not correct. I set up some sample .htm pages with image galleries and videos on my personal web space on Comcast server using Silverlight 2. I don't have a clue what web server Comcast is using. I know they support ASP, but I don't think they support ASP.NET because my .aspx pages didn't work. Here are examples:

Silverlight video player in BlackGlass skin

Silverlight video/audio player with gallery in default skin

Image gallery using Silverlight DeepZoom Technology

amendegw wrote: "Actually, it's even simpler than this... you can use the .wmv rendered in Vegas directly. Don't need to go thru a conversion. Just play the video directly on your website using the Silverlight player."

If a Mac user downloads the Silverlight player, it will play a Vegas-rendered wmv file on my website without any additional software/downloads/plugins?

CClub,

You don't download Silverlight player. It is embedded into the web page. You just install Silverlight plug-in into your browser, the same way you install Flash player plug-in.

Wrong terminology... thanks for the correction. So, if a Mac user installs the Silverlight plug-in, that plugin will enable their browser to play a Vegas-rendered wmv file that is on a website no problem?

The reason I ask this is because it was always my understanding that a Mac didn't play a wmv file easily.

Yes. Here is link to Mac Silverlight plug-in:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/development_tools/silverlight.html

Netflix uses Silverlight for their Watch Instantly movies (streaming).

It works really well on Macs.

" you must have an ASP.NET web page."

MozartMan,

I stand corrected, I see your (nicely done) pages use the <object> tag and javascript.js to invoke the Silverlight player. Using this technique Silverlight is not restricted to .aspx pages.

When referencing the Silverlight 2 namespace, Visual Studio has a "MediaPlayer" tool that invokes the player via AJAX. (you merely drag the "MediaPlayer" from the toolbox to the design area, reference the wmv file and, viola, you're using Silverlight.) I'm now reading up on Silverlight 3 and see that this method is depreciated and the <object>/javascript.js method is preferred. I will need to change my websites to use this method.

Was that explanation too technical/confusing? Suffice it to say... Silverlight is NOT restricted to ASP.NET pages.

My apologies,
...Jerry