I've just seen an article about Silverlight 3 but I have to be honest and say that I have absolutely no idea what it is?!

There don't seem to be any websites (apart from the Microsoft Update site) that even mention it.

I have heard people say it's something to do with online media or something but then BBC iPlayer and YouTube seem to be doing fine without it.

So what exactly is it?

Does anyone know?

TVM

I believe it cures cancer or something. Dunno.

It's a sort of Flash replacement.

Where's Fin?

I think it's just that, Microsoft's take on Flash. I've only been on two sites that wanted me to install a plug-in for it, that was the MS site and either ITV or Channel 4's catchup service site...

Pretty much. It is Microsoft's take on a "rich internet experience". It is XML based, which means that you can examine the contents more easily than the binary format of Flash, if you are paranoid.

It is still pretty rare, there are only a couple of thousand active sites that use it - which, given the billions of sites and pages out there, it isn't surprising that you don't bump into it that often, yet.

http://memorabilia.hardrock.com/

Is a good example. It uses the "deep zoom" feature of Silverlight to start with a high level view of all of the memorabilia of Hard Rock Café and then zoom in to a closer level and then to a detailed level smoothly...

Yep a flash replacement, also has other benefits which slip my mind this early in the morning

You stole my example big_D!

Dave's example doesn't seem to work in FF

Working in FF 3.0.5 and 3.0.10 here...

Woah, that Otis Redding concert poster is a bit creepy.

Have you installed the Silverlight plug-in?

I can right click the content and bring up the Silverlight menu and stuff so I presume I have?!

It just shows a black square when I load the page.

You need v2 of silverlight IIRC, you might need to update it

I've got V2 with automatic updates on also.

I did notice that the page seems to stick on "transferring data from..." and never finishes.

If I switch to another tab it then stops transferring but never loads the page.

It might be a company policy stopping it from loading or something.

The only site I use regularly which uses Silverlight is the ITVplayer site.

I find it pretty slow and clunky, and not very good to use. They really should have used HTML selection boxes IMO - the silverlight ones don't resize, don't scroll, and they're slow and clunky to open.

Video playback itself seems okay, but it seems to get a little confused switchng between adverts and the actual media sometimes.

It's hard to say how much if this is Silverlights fault or whoever made the ITVplayer but regardless, it's given me a bad impression.

I agree.

I once tried to watch the F1 on ITV Catchup. It was slow to move between adverts and actual program content and when it did eventually switch it didn't always load the correct part.

e.g. I was watching part 4 (IIRC) with Martin Brundle on the grid interviewing the drivers and when it came back from the adverts they were on part 6 and 5 or so laps into the race! Because you can't skipp backwards I had to reload the page and skip forwards.

It did this 3 or 4 times at different points of the race! In the end I gave up watching.

Thank god for the BBC and iPlayer!!!

Yeah I remember when it was that bad. It has improved but is still not perfect.

The first time I used it was awful though-just as you described. I don't see why they can't just embed the adverts into the media rather than switching all the time - it seems more effort than it's worth!