Silverlight on Linux, sans Mono

According to the description of this recent video (starring The Guth), Silverlight now works on Linux.


I haven't finished downloaded the 575MB video yet, but can someone who has (or knows more info) confirm if it means Microsoft's official Silverlight distro supports Linux, or is it refering to Mono's Moonlight implementation?

Both.

Moonlight is now the official Silverlight for Linux

Get Solaris builds going. Shouldn't exactly be an issue, considering it offers more or less the same libraries and components these days. Don't be (I need to watch my language)s like Adobe with it's Flash player (well, we got Flash 9 for Solaris, but it's yet again lagging behind with H.264 for no damn reason).

--edit: Nevermind, it'll be Moonlight. At least I can get this working here.

Tom Servo wrote:

Get Solaris builds going. Shouldn't exactly be an issue, considering it offers more or less the same libraries and components these days. Don't be (I need to watch my language)s like Adobe with it's Flash player (well, we got Flash 9 for Solaris, but it's yet again lagging behind with H.264 for no damn reason).

--edit: Nevermind, it'll be Moonlight. At least I can get this working here.

Wow, at least Flash *has* H.264...

Sourcecode wrote:

Wow, at least Flash *has* H.264...

Flash now has VP6 in addition to H.264, which was pragmatically superior to H.264, according to their developers.

W3bbo wrote:

...Mono's Moonlight implementation?

Actually, Moonlight 1.0 has no dependencies on Mono. So, it's actually Miguel d I. & his team who wrote Moonlight, and they all work for Novell.

W3bbo wrote:



Sourcecode wrote: Wow, at least Flash *has* H.264...

Flash now has VP6 in addition to H.264, which was pragmatically superior to H.264, according to their developers.

I'm not as versed in Video as i'd like to be, and far from most folks but; H.264 seems to be the defacto standard going forward. HD DVD, Blue Ray et al (hence the choice).  Plus they added support for ACC audio. Not to mention multi-core hardware acceleration.

So Premier and After Effects will output directly making the workflow seamless. Plus all the other goodies that this format provides that FLV does not (proper scrubbing, chapters, subtitles, list goes on.).

As every media company is scrambling to grab a piece of the (put your content online) wave and have realized that experience matters, and given that silverlight does not support this standard (AFAIK)..

Will it be painful to silverlight ? 

I think it will be.

Sourcecode wrote:

I'm not as versed in Video as i'd like to be, and far from most folks but; H.264 seems to be the defacto standard going forward. HD DVD, Blue Ray et al (hence the choice).  Plus they added support for ACC audio. Not to mention multi-core hardware acceleration.

So Premier and After Effects will output directly making the workflow seamless. Plus all the other goodies that this format provides that FLV does not (proper scrubbing, chapters, subtitles, list goes on.).

As every media company is scrambling to grab a piece of the (put your content online) wave and have realized that experience matters, and given that silverlight does not support this standard (AFAIK)..

Will it be painful to silverlight ? 

I think it will be.

Actually VC-1 is by far the preferred codec for HD DVD and many Blu-Ray titles as well.

H.264 requires A LOT of cpu power for decoding if no hardware acceleration is available and i'm not sure Flash is able to leverage GPU hardware acceleration, which means that you propably won't be seeing all that many high-def H.264 flash videos for the time being. This is one of the BIG advantages VC-1 has. It's a lot easier on the CPU for decoding purposes as well as being seemingly better than H.264 for HD content at high bitrates (it's supposed to preserve film grain a lot better for example).

Minh wrote:



W3bbo wrote: ...Mono's Moonlight implementation?

Actually, Moonlight 1.0 has no dependencies on Mono. So, it's actually Miguel d I. & his team who wrote Moonlight, and they all work for Novell.

Looks like Silverlight itself has no dependencies on .NET as well...

Interesting bits of info here...

Miguel wrote:

Microsoft will give Novell access to the test suites for Silverlight to ensure that we have a compatible specification. The same test suite that Microsoft uses for Silverlight.

Microsoft will give us access to the Silverlight specifications: details that might be necessary to implement 1.0, beyond what is currently published on the web; and specifications on the 1.1 version of Silverlight as it is updated.

Hmmm...I wonder what that means..."beyond what is currently published on the web".

Stebet wrote:



Sourcecode wrote: I'm not as versed in Video as i'd like to be, and far from most folks but; H.264 seems to be the defacto standard going forward. HD DVD, Blue Ray et al (hence the choice).  Plus they added support for ACC audio. Not to mention multi-core hardware acceleration. So Premier and After Effects will output directly making the workflow seamless. Plus all the other goodies that this format provides that FLV does not (proper scrubbing, chapters, subtitles, list goes on.). As every media company is scrambling to grab a piece of the (put your content online) wave and have realized that experience matters, and given that silverlight does not support this standard (AFAIK).. Will it be painful to silverlight ?  I think it will be.

Actually VC-1 is by far the preferred codec for HD DVD and many Blu-Ray titles as well.

H.264 requires A LOT of cpu power for decoding if no hardware acceleration is available and i'm not sure Flash is able to leverage GPU hardware acceleration, which means that you propably won't be seeing all that many high-def H.264 flash videos for the time being. This is one of the BIG advantages VC-1 has. It's a lot easier on the CPU for decoding purposes as well as being seemingly better than H.264 for HD content at high bitrates (it's supposed to preserve film grain a lot better for example).

Not according to the below info.


http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Adobe-Flash-Player-9-Update-Features-H264-Support-33211.htm

Camcorder Info wrote:


The reason H.264 is so highly sought after stems from its support of high quality video at a low bit rates, High Efficiency AAC (HE-AAC) audio support, and full screen playback. A derivative of the MPEG-4 format, H.264 is utilized by Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players, supporting high definition video and premium audio content.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/adobe_flash_player_moviestar_h264.php

ReadWrite wrote:



3) It means "hardware acceleration" for Web video.

Randall also said that ...

EDIT: I wonder what else Adobe will announce at the end of the month with regards to Flash 9. Apparently there are allot of things that are going to blow us away.

Ted wrote:



At Adobe MAX 2007 in Chicago we are going showing off the next full release of Flash Player code named "Astro". The features are mind numbing and add capabilities far beyond anything the market today. The future of Adobe Flash Player looks very bright indeed.

In any case it’s going to be a really interesting 2008/2009 for us tech folks.


p.s. Stebet, Sorry about the miss quote...Had forgotten to change the user=""... 

Edit 2 : W3bbo, sorry for the hijack… I'll stop there.

Sourcecode wrote:


Not according to the below info.


http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Adobe-Flash-Player-9-Update-Features-H264-Support-33211.htm

Camcorder Info wrote:  The reason H.264 is so highly sought after stems from its support of high quality video at a low bit rates, High Efficiency AAC (HE-AAC) audio support, and full screen playback. A derivative of the MPEG-4 format, H.264 is utilized by Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players, supporting high definition video and premium audio content.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/adobe_flash_player_moviestar_h264.php

HD DVD and Blu-Ray support MPEG2, VC-1 and H.264.

VC-1 is by far the most popular codec on HD DVD (it's used on about 90% of all HD DVD titles) and on Blu-Ray H.264 and VC-1 make up for about 25% of titles each (with MPEG2 on about 50% of all Blu-Ray titles surprisingly).

Interesting with the GPU hardware acceleration, i wonder how they are going to provide that on all platforms since i'm pretty sure GPU hardware acceleration of H.264 is "Windows only" for the moment due to it's dependence on video drivers.

BlackTiger wrote:



Minh wrote:  W3bbo wrote: ...Mono's Moonlight implementation? Actually, Moonlight 1.0 has no dependencies on Mono. So, it's actually Miguel d I. & his team who wrote Moonlight, and they all work for Novell.

Looks like Silverlight itself has no dependencies on .NET as well...

*headAssplodes*

Can someone please explain what's going on?

Once the dust settles the end user will use whatever their  favorite sites chooses to uses. Whether the best will be the same as most populaur will not matter. I think silverlight is here to stay.

odujosh wrote:

Once the dust settles the end user will use whatever their  favorite sites chooses to uses. Whether the best will be the same as most populaur will not matter. I think silverlight is here to stay.

Microsoft needs to allow script-kiddies to warez the Silverlight IDEs, otherwise it will never become mass-market and popular.

Sorry, but it's true. Flash would not be as popular as it is today if it weren't for all the 14 yearolds who warezed it, learned it, became proficient in it, then made all those flash games and videos we know and love.

And an "officially approved" Express range of products won't cut it. And if Microsoft tries "Expression Genuine Advantage" it'll kill it off.

Go after commercial warezers, like design houses and stuff, but don't touch the kids alright?

Miguel noted in his blog that the codecs required for Moonlight come in binary blob format. That means that while Mono can run on anything from x86 to PPC to SPARC to IBM mainframe, Moonlight can only runs on Microsoft-blessed platforms which they release codecs for.

EDIT: Looks like Miguel updated his blog to clear this up:

Miguel wrote:

Currently Moonlight video support has been prototyped using the fabulous and LGPLed ffmpeg engine for video and audio. We are unable to redistribute this code commercially due to licensing conflicts. Update: This means that individuals that want to use a 100% pure free software setup can do so. We are unable to redistribute this edition though.

So "officially" it runs on Microsoft's choice of platforms, but it looks like it will be portable which should hopefully stop anything similar to the Flash on Linux lag from happening.