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258 Comments
- Jbone1986, on 05/09/2009, -11/+147what about fleshlight?
- MtheoryX, on 05/09/2009, -12/+86Neither. I'd rather have HTML5 and something like SproutCore... enough with the proprietary ***** already.
- superkendall, on 05/09/2009, -18/+58"Silverlight implements the industry-standard VC-1 codec"...
Which is great if your "industry" is propping up Microsoft.
I cannot wait til Netflix dumps the damn thing. - inactive, on 05/09/2009, -5/+40Maybe i'm just being a dumb girl here,
but fleshlight does not work with my system properly.
amidoinitrite? - rocketman42, on 05/09/2009, -10/+41It would have been nice if they also mentioned what Silverlight 3 is adding since it is already in beta.
I also question the accuracy of this article. It says "Silverlight doesn’t support socket programming." which didn't seem right since .net has a ton of stuff for that.Sure enough, the first link under Further Resources has an entire section on networking and sockets, including:
"Silverlight supports sockets programming through the System.Net.Sockets namespace. A socket is a low-level communication channel that is generally configured using TCP/IP. Silverlight supports asynchronously sending data back and forth across a socket over ports ranging from 4502 to 4534. Silverlight supports cross-domain socket communications between a Silverlight application and any server, provided that a special security policy file is in place on the server."
I wonder what else is wrong... - DjOverEZ, on 05/09/2009, -0/+29Don't pretend you don't know.
- inactive, on 05/09/2009, -2/+28Agreed. Flash was a good idea originally because there needed to be a way to get multimedia online.
Now it causes issues, juices battery life, is not directly indexable, can't bookmark individual pages and other things.
Let's dump proprietary ASAP.
We really need a universal video browser plugin though.
One that just requires codecs in a folder and a sharted repository.
A plugin that plays wmv avi mov divx and all of the encodings without installing all of the video plugins. - wefarrell, on 05/09/2009, -3/+28I work with flash but Netflix is one place where I can see a niche for Silverlight. I have a big monitor (2560x1600) that makes youtube and hulu run very choppy on when they're fullscreen. Netflix streaming videos resize and fullscreen very easily and almost never run choppy for me. They're also smoother when a lot of background apps are running and I have a mac.
- oofki, on 05/09/2009, -4/+29I have programmed both flash and silverlight. I am sorry but C# is way better then actionscript. When VS 2010 comes out Siverlight will be much me integrated into the IDE and it will include a lot more features. I love flash but I think Silverlight is going to gain grounds slowly.
- strangewill, on 05/09/2009, -3/+27Make sure your system is up to date Mr. The Rapist.
- inactive, on 05/09/2009, -2/+25It's an open source version that does both flash and silverlight.
Tell everyone you see that. - colonelxc, on 05/09/2009, -1/+23Flash is in fact installed on everyone's machine... but it is not fast. it will chew through CPU, especially on linux systems
- benologist, on 05/09/2009, -4/+25HTML5 doesn't even begin to introduce the functionality Flash has had for the last decade.
- rnawky, on 05/09/2009, -0/+21The benefit is letting me use it in 64 bit web browsers.....
- cronin4392, on 05/09/2009, -4/+24pretty sure its only Actionscript.
- Me1000, on 05/09/2009, -3/+23well neither flash nor silverlight work on several devices and both require plugins to run... So I'm thinking javascript and HTML5 FTW.
- geodebug, on 05/09/2009, -2/+20Silverlight is also positioned to be used for internal applications inside corporations (like flex). There are a bazillion .NET programmers so it makes sense for them to use silverlight vs learning Flash.
-- I have no strong feelings toward either. - ricodued, on 05/09/2009, -6/+23And just how is C# inferior to "Action"script?
- Radan, on 05/09/2009, -3/+19No, NO! Bad! Such thinking is exactly what got us into this mess. Flash is like an infected wound gnawing on your entrails. Silverlight is the STD version of it.
- factsahoy, on 05/09/2009, -0/+16The problem is that it often DOESN'T work.
It's time for an entirely new, OPEN presentation language for the Web. HTML and its derivatives have become a pathetic hack. The fact that we don't even have a simple vector-art standard for Web pages in 2009 just proves how backward this entire enterprise is. - colonelxc, on 05/09/2009, -0/+15What you're looking for is html 5 with video and audio tags. That way the users can use whatever works on their system
- dtfinch, on 05/10/2009, -1/+15It's like they compared Silverlight 1 to Flash 7.
The current Flash supports H.264 and AAC, and has real sockets. They also messed up pretty bad describing Flash's animation support. I don't think they ever used it, apart from taking screenshots. - Me1000, on 05/09/2009, -2/+16add javascript to that list.
- SPThom, on 05/09/2009, -1/+15HTML5 is all of ten minutes old... Give it a while.
- LANjackal, on 05/09/2009, -16/+29Nice technical comparison. I'd have to say Flash seems to win by a light year or two, hands down. I never quite understood the point of Silverlight as a competitor as it would almost always be just an "also ran"
- rnawky, on 05/09/2009, -2/+14I'm STILL waiting for Adobe to release a 64 bit version of flash.
- PhillyMJS, on 05/09/2009, -2/+14Adobe doesn't have a dog in the OS-marketshare fight, so I would tend to trust them more in terms of maintaining good multi-platform support. Especially when the other contender is Microsoft, who will do anything they can to give Windows an edge (I can't be the only person who remembers their little gambit to proprietarize Java).
- ZippyV, on 05/09/2009, -0/+12File size: The XML files from Silverlight are using zip compression.
- JoeOReilly, on 05/09/2009, -2/+13You're totally right, open web standards is where we need to go!
I really wish I didn't have to install flash and haven't bothered with Silverlight, I just can't see the point.
HTML 5, OpenGL and Javascript are what we need more advancement in! - Aleman360, on 05/09/2009, -8/+19It makes absolutely no difference to me as a Windows user so I don't care. Most of the stuff I watch is in Flash but Netflix and the Final Four use Silverlight and look great.
I've never had a problem with the Silverlight player though and do have occasional Flash player problems. Seems like Netflix has less problems with Silverlight too:
http://gizmodo.com/5106039/netflix-lays-off-50-tec ... - SPThom, on 05/09/2009, -3/+14I'm somewhat disappointed by Smashing on this article. In the video section of the article, they only vaguely hint at Flash's support for h.264, and then try to pass off Windows Media as the format anyone can use? Yuck!
My department has developed an in-house streaming video service. Uploads get processed through FFmpeg and X264, and can be viewed online in a Flash embed, saved to iTunes and playable on an iPod or any other device capable of displaying h.264. I'd like to see you get WMV work on anything other than a Zune.
I don't have much knowledge of Flash outside of the topic of video, but based on their misinformation on that subject, I'll choose to disregard the rest of this article. - totaljerkface, on 05/10/2009, -2/+13"Flash uses the frame-based animation model. In frame-by-frame animation, we create an object for each frame to produce an animation sequence. For example, if you want to move something across the screen in 3 seconds, calculate how many frames 3 seconds will take, then calculate the matrices required for each frame along the way."
what the *****? if you are just using the timeline, tweening something in flash couldn't be easier. this makes it sound like you are doing math problems. and moving something with actionscript is simple. matrices are an optional tool and only serve as a way to do multiple transformations at once.
"Silverlight is based on the WPF animation model, which is time-based instead of frame-based, so you define the start and end conditions, and it figures out how to do it. No need to deal with matrices like with Flash. Also, no need to calculate the positions of objects in various frames."
in flash that's called a tween. this person is retarded. - Yazilliclick, on 05/09/2009, -0/+10Yeah there are a couple mistakes or left out facts in places. I get the feeling from it that the person or people that wrote it were definitely more familiar with Flash than Silverlight.
- gridbread, on 05/09/2009, -26/+36Silverlight still exists?
- NeilM, on 05/09/2009, -7/+17What a crock of crap. VC-1 and WMA is better than flash's latest format? I heard no mention of AVC or AAC as flash's latest video/audio format until the conclusion, after Silverlight was given points for being better. Why? Because everyone knows if they said that we've have something go off of other than the article's word. AVC and AAC is superior to VC-1 and WMA in every way. AVC is used as the standard format for blu ray because it's higher quality and it compresses better than VC-1. It wins at both ends of the spectrum.
Of course, this article is comparing audio and video codecs from a purely different perspective, the one that makes silverlight look better for some ridiculous reason. Of course VC-1 is the "industry standard"... it came out first, it's owned by Microsoft and it was pushed like mad crazy. AVC was made with a different goal in mind, to be an ADVANCED codec. If you choose Silverlight, that means you're choosing VC-1 and WMA, proprietary formats that prevent you from using anything other than commercial software to which royalties must be paid. But if you choose Flash, you're choosing AVC and AAC which can be freely implemented into free programs and no royaltees have to be paid. That much I know about AVC, AAC might be a bit sketchy.. There exist free AAC encoders, but I know of no such free WMA encoders, so I admit my lack of knowledge in that regard. In any case, Flash is using a format that gives the user more flexibility than Silverlight and for that reason, Flash is better. This article is biased, they purposely witheld information about Flash's video and audio format until the conclusion and bragged about VC-1 and WMA as an "industry standard" because they know they can fool the general populous. Either that, or it's written by someone very uninformed. - PB3K, on 05/09/2009, -11/+21Flash is mature, fast, installed on everyone's machine, has the Flex and Air libraries, and works with several other scripting languages. Silverlight has MS. I'll stick with Flash. Also, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. With Flash 10 Google and Yahoo can index swf's.
- theone3, on 05/10/2009, -1/+11Yes, but they're comparing Silverlight 1.0, not 2.0. Also, they got various things wrong - everything in a Silverlight project is contained within a zip container, so the XML is actually compressed. Linux support is not missing, it's limited with Moonlight. XAML can be easily plugged into WPF and compiled as an application. AIR and Flex are not mentioned. IIS Streaming Media Services are not mentioned. They didn't even bring up the install base issue in Silverlight.
They also left out future versions: 3D support in Flash and Silverlight is not mentioned, Silverlight's upcoming *GPU integrated* h.264/AAC codec support and flex-like "out of browser experience" are not mentioned, and there is no discussion of HTML5. All of these things are important if you're only just picking a platform now. - oofki, on 05/09/2009, -1/+11Well they are comparing Flash with Silverlight 1.0 when 3.0 will be out soon...
- geodebug, on 05/09/2009, -1/+11and Flash..
oh, wait - cosmotic, on 05/09/2009, -3/+12This article is wrong on nearly every item. The author should be ashamed of themselves.
- gemlarin, on 05/10/2009, -0/+9I would have to agree. It is obvious that he has not used the newest version of Flash.
- homercles337, on 05/09/2009, -0/+9Add SVG...
- alpha88, on 05/09/2009, -4/+12Flash is pretty terrible, and it's even worse on Mac for some reason. Silverlight has caused me no problems on Windows or Mac.
- CaptOblivious, on 05/09/2009, -0/+8As far as codecs, in a folder, No I'm NOT going to let any random web server run code directly on my machine, which is what a codec is/does.
You haven't heard of the "codec packs" where half of them contain trojans?
You have to have heard of the old download my codec to view my content (and secretly become part of my botnet) trick. - benologist, on 05/09/2009, -4/+12The point of Silverlight is to bring the full functionality of .NET languages to the web without the limitations HTML/etc suffer from.
It's definitely got much less penetration than Flash which I think is due to two things... Flash got there first, but more importantly it evolved so rapidly that there was never really a *need* for an alternative, however the competition is good even if Silverlight doesn't reach the mainstream as much as Flash has. - jordandev, on 10/15/2009, -1/+8uh... no?
- HeavyWave, on 05/10/2009, -0/+7What is wrong with both is that they feel like a browser inside the browser.
- inactive, on 05/09/2009, -3/+10Silverlight runs just fine for me on less machine, so who knows what's going on?
- inactive, on 05/09/2009, -0/+7I don't know whether to Digg or Bury in a situation like this.
- drmsux, on 05/10/2009, -1/+8@CaptOblivious: actually, C# is a Java clone (somewhat more successful than Java, hehe), and Microsoft C implementation is MSVC (it even _mostly_ conforms to ANSI starting from VS 7.x)
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