24 April 2008

Microsoft has announced the beta launch of version 2 of Silverlight, its cross-browser, cross-platform and now cross-device plug-in for the delivery of interactive multimedia experiences.

Adoption of Silverlight has rapidly gained momentum since its launch last year. Now, almost 1.5 million installations are being downloaded and installed each day. Silverlight 2, though, will be a major step forward. As well as the improved functionality available within the new product, Microsoft has announced its intention to deliver the product on Windows Mobile-based devices, as well as a partnership with Nokia to support it for S60 on Symbian OS, the world’s leading smartphone software, and for Series 40 devices and Nokia Internet tablets.

Introducing Silverlight 2 at the MIX08 developer conference in Las Vegas recently, Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president in charge of Microsoft’s .NET Developer Division, said that Silverlight 2 had three particular aims for improving media experiences. “One is improving the user experience when watching high-definition video even further,” he said. “The second is on improving total cost of operations for delivering video. And the third one is offering monetisation opportunities so you can integrate ads into your site and into Silverlight applications.”

Silverlight has already gained strong industry support from content creators, distributors, software vendors, and solution providers. Over 85 companies now support it via the Silverlight Partner Initiative, and major enterprises and media companies are announcing plans to integrate it into their online experiences. Since Silverlight is tightly integrated with .NET, millions of developers using Microsoft developer technologies can quickly transfer their skills to Silverlight development.

Silverlight experiences can be created by designers using Microsoft Expression and by developers using Visual Studio; it also enables a wide range of other helper technologies to be employed. Visual Studio itself comes complete with a full-featured code and XAML editor, a debugger, a profiler and a data designer. Since Silverlight uses XAML, which is an open text-based format, it’s easy to maintain user-experience fidelity across the design and development process.

Silverlight 2 takes advantage of the power of Microsoft’s newly-released Windows Server 2008 to help content providers realise new levels of reliability and scalability with lower-cost content delivery. A key part of this is the new release of Windows Media Services (WMS) which, like all of Windows Server 2008, is significantly more secure, reliable and robust for live and on demand streaming.

In addition to its proven scalability and reliability, Windows Media Services now supports a Server Core installation, enabling reduced footprints for fixed function streaming server scenarios, offering embedded appliance-like performance. Additionally, a cache/proxy plug-in is built in, making it easier to configure WMS for edge network enterprise and Internet topologies.
Internet Information Services 7.0 (IIS7) works with Silverlight 2 for progressive downloads. IIS7 Media Pack bring media-specific features, previously exclusive to dedicated streaming media servers, to a Web server. Bit Rate Throttling, for example, brings intelligence to progressive downloads and automatically detects the encoded bit rate of each file and controls how fast the first few seconds and then the rest of the stream is downloaded, thus saving network bandwidth while preserving a fast start-up experience for the end user.

Currently in preview release, the second key IIS7 Media Pack feature is Web Playlists. Web Playlists let providers deliver server-controlled media playlists from a Web server infrastructure instead of having to use a dedicated streaming server. The Web Playlist hides the location of the media asset from the end user, and prevents the end user from skipping pre-roll or in-stream advertising. Using the power of ASP.NET, Web Playlists can deliver personalised advertising and content to each end user.

With support for Web Playlists in IIS7 Media Pack, content owners can monetise their media assets through advertising-supported revenue models. A variety of advertising types, including bumpers, trailers, and interstitial ads, can be dynamic and personalised via integration with ASP.NET servers. Using Web Playlists, content and advertising can be sequenced with URLs sent from the server via a client-side playlist. Since media playback experiences cannot be compromised, this ensures that ads are played and content is protected.

Among the most exciting new developments in Silverlight 2 is the Deep Zoom feature. Deep Zoom-based on advanced technology from Microsoft Research that makes it possible to consume super-high resolution images on the Web. Potential uses include medical imagery, aerial and satellite photography, and even easy viewing of photos from digital cameras. It’s also designed to save bandwidth on high resolution images that users don’t zoom into, since it only sends the browser the correct size and resolution for the current display area. Deep Zoom saves production time, since it’s no longer necessary to manually create multiple images for Web viewing.

One company that is already making use of the power of Deep Zoom is the global hospitality business Hard Rock. Since its inception in London in 1971, rock fans have been visiting Hard Rock locations to see its unparalleled memorabilia collection, and experience the music history that goes with it.

This world-class collection of rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia has become a major part of the Hard Rock brand which now includes 126 restaurants, nine hotels and casinos and four live entertainment venues in 48 countries around the world. Hard Rock has amassed more than 70,000 items, including famous guitars played by Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and The Edge, the wicker settee where John Lennon penned many of his songs, a pair of Buddy Holly’s eyeglasses and the Beatles’ ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ bus.
Now, Hard Rock has announced a new milestone in its mission to bring these pieces of rock ‘n’ roll history to the public: an interactive Web experience based on Silverlight 2. ‘Hard Rock Memorabilia 2.0’ serves up high-resolution mages of memorabilia and allows fans the ability to zoom in on tiny details.

“Hard Rock is always looking for innovative ways to allow more fans to experience the rock ‘n’ roll history it represents,” says chief marketing officer Sean Dee. “But of course the memorabilia is extremely valuable and difficult to move, so we wanted to find a more practical way to bring the collection to a broader audience around the world. With Silverlight, we were able to build an application that allows us to make our collection accessible and highly interactive for millions of fans worldwide.” To develop the solution, Hard Rock worked with two vendors: San Francisco-based advertising and design firm Duncan/Channon, and design and development house Vertigo.

Vertigo CEO Scott Stanfield immediately saw an opportunity to use Microsoft Silverlight 2 for this project, specifically Deep Zoom. “With Deep Zoom, the user experience is turned upside down,” he says. “This was a big, big jump in terms of what we can create and offer to our clients and their users. We’re down to the grain of leather on somebody’s jacket or the individual wire wraps on the E string of a guitar. You can see inside Buddy Holly’s glasses and see the inscription from the manufacturer.”
Silverlight 2 makes such detailed views possible by delivering photos through a Web interface that allows visitors to experience them in a very natural way, to pan and zoom across them and get a feel for the items as if they were in the same room.

Duncan/Channon creative director Mike Lemme, the lead designer on the project, points to a guitar, handmade by Bo Diddley, which features a TV tuner knob used for volume control, a detail that wouldn’t necessarily be visible on a guitar hanging on a restaurant wall. Another unique experience for visitors will be the chance to view the lyrics to John Lennon’s song ‘Imagine’ in the artist’s own handwriting. “No pun intended, but imagine being able to zoom in on that handwriting and see how he wrote each word,” Lemme says. “There’s something truly magical about that.”

Stanfield says Silverlight 2 gave his developers the chance to do what they love best — be creative using technology. “This really took us back to the drawing boards,” he says. “It gave us the freedom to go back and rethink how we really want to do this.” “The proof of whether we did a good job is if we can watch people just fall into the screen and spend time moving around the site looking at different pieces of memorabilia or connecting with a piece of music or an artist that they grew up with and love,” says Lemme. “We think that’s exactly what we’ll see with this.”

Other major companies already committed to Silverlight 2 include AOL, which has used the technology to develop AOL Mail SL, a high-performing e-mail application bringing the speed and functionality of desktop applications into a Web-based experience. Luxury automotive firm Aston Martin has built a Silverlight-based car configurator that allows prospective purchasers to explore number of options in a rich and engaging manner.

This article first appeared in the March 2008 edition of Microsoft Connections in Communications.