About a month ago I did a post…or more accurately a review…of Microsoft Silverlight (Microsoft’s foray into the world of web video). The review even drew a couple comments from the Silverlight team at Microsoft.
At the time, my big question with Silverlight was…why would someone want to use it when Flash is the Internet standard when it comes to web video?
Well, Microsoft just announced that the new Silverlight player (due for release in early 2009) will support Flash video files. That’s right, they’re going to start supporting the very video format they’re trying to compete with.
Kind of.
You see, the Silverlight player is going to support Flash files only in the h.264 format. And…it won’t support streaming Flash files (like from a streaming Flash server)…only progressive downloads (which is how the majority of videos on the web are viewed).
Why is Microsoft doing this? According to Steven Sklepowich, Group Product Manager for Silverlight, it’s because h.264 is becoming “the next generation standard” in web video and “we’re becoming more of an open runtime environment”.
Or it could be that 70% of the videos viewed online last year were in the Flash format and Microsoft realized they’re going to have a tough time getting video content producers to switch sides. So by allowing video content producers to “stick with what they know”….and giving them the option to use the Silverlight player too…they are opening doors that would have otherwise remained closed.
Not a bad move considering what they’re facing. But will it work? Will it eventually convert more people from Flash over to Silverlight?
Maybe a few…but probably not the numbers they are hoping for. And that’s because professional video content producers know one thing; if a viewer has to download a plugin to watch online video, they usually end up just clicking away to another page (and that’s the last thing we want to have happen).
Flash videos can be watched by 98% of people on the Internet without any plugin downloads. With Silverlight, the numbers swing dramatically the other way. And until Microsoft can come up with some really compelling reasons for us to use Silverlight over Flash, I think, the majority of us will remain human, resist change…and just stick with what we know.