Sep 0804
It’s an HD World
High Definition (HD) is everywhere. The Blu-ray format has won the HD DVD war and I’m seeing a lot more Blu-ray movies at my local video store and retail stores. As I mentioned in a previous post, Apple TV and the PS3 now have HD videos on demand.
Earlier this year, Microsoft released Silverlight, their answer to Adobe’s Flash. The official Web site describes Silverlight as “a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web.” I downloaded Silverlight in order to watch the Democratic National Convention live, in HD. The picture was unbelievably crisp and the audio was terrific. BTW, I checked; no HD feed on the official Republican Convention site.
I didn’t realize it, but the NBC Olympics Web site had videos powered by Silverlight (not in HD, however). Here’s a link to a video feed of the closing ceremony and a PC World article describing what Silverlight allowed the Web site developers to do.
