Microsoft Killing Silverlight?

SharkLaser writes "Silverlight 5 might be last version released by Microsoft. Several industry insiders and partners for the last few weeks have heard from their own Microsoft sources that there won't be new versions released after Silverlight 5. Status on service packs and support for Silverlight is unclear, as Microsoft haven't yet released lifecycle support end date even for the previous Silverlight 4. By their support page they will give full year head-up before ending support. With Adobe ending development of Flash for mobile browsers and Microsoft ending development of Silverlight, HTML5 video looks a lot more promising. But will content providers be able to give out their material without DRM and how does HTML5 perform with non-video side of Flash and Silverlight?"

What about Video??

[bradgoodman]

With the decline of these client-side frameworks, where is that going to leave video??

...and don't say "HTML5" - because that doesn't define just about ANYTHING.

First there was Flash video over RTMP, then there was Adobe HTTP Dynamic streaming (HDS). Both of these were ADAPTIVE streaming technologies, and extremely popular an widley used. Moreso RTMP, but HDS is starting to gain adoption.

HTML-5 does not provide any method for any kind of adaptive bitrate, or fragmented video delivery. It is strictly PROGRESSIVE download - i.e. download the whole file, and play it. There are a billion problems with this. No adaptive bitrate (downgrade video quality if you cannot meet the sustained bitrate), and difficulty in caching (caching one giant file very difficult for a reactive, real-time cache, as opposed to caching smalller HDS or HLS "fragments"). The only other really "competitor" would be Apples HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) - which is the standard for iOS devices, and starting to gain adoption on Set-Top Box-devices, but pretty invisible on the desktop space.

So...my question is... "What about video!?"

Re:Netflix

[bennomatic]

They somehow manage to do without it on iOS devices. Perhaps a desktop application is coming for Mac OS/Windows/Linux.