Michael S. Scherotter Microsoft Corporation

What is Silverlight?  Cross Browser: Safari, FireFox, Internet Explorer  Cross Platform: Mac, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, and now Suse Linux (Moonlight)  Building High-Quality Media Experiences  Building Rich Interactive Applications

Silverlight 1 & 2  Silverlight 1 – for Media Scenarios  Released September 2007  Vector graphics, images, video, animation, gradients  Uses browser’s JavaScript programming model Silverlight 2 – for Media + RIA Scenarios  Now in Public Beta – Will be released later in 2008  Adds Deep Zoom, DRM, Adaptive Streaming, full control set (skinable/ styles), Data Binding  Subset of.Net Framework (C#, VB.Net)  Dynamic Language Runtime (Ruby, Python, Jscript.net)

Demo

What do Web Hosting Companies Need to Know? 1. Media Formats 2. Streaming vs. Progressive Download 3. MIME Types 4. Integrating with Web Analytics 5. Integrating with Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) 6. Additional Services around RIA Construction

Media Formats: Video  WMV1: Windows Media Video 7  WMV2: Windows Media Video 8  WMV3: Windows Media Video 9  WMVA: Windows Media Video Advanced Profile, non-VC-1  WMVC1: Windows Media Video Advanced Profile, VC-1  + Multiple Bit Rate (MBR)

Media Formats: Audio  WMA 7: Windows Media Audio 7  WMA 8: Windows Media Audio 8  WMA 9: Windows Media Audio 9  MP3: ISO/MPEG Layer-3 – see Silverlight SDK for additional detail

Media Formats: Encoding  Use Expression Encoder  Has command-line interface so it can be scripted as part of a media workflow  Encode from.3g2.mod.3gp.mov.asf.mp4.avi.mpeg.dv.mpg.dvr-ms.ts.m2v.vob.m4v.wmv.aiff.m4A m4B bwf mp3 wav wma  Use Windows Media Encoder  Use any other encoder that creates supported formats

Streaming vs. Progressive Download  Progressive Download  Put a media file on any server – vanilla hosting  Can only view content that’s been download so far  Cannot monitor consumption from server  Streaming  On demand/live media  Can monitor consumption from server  Windows Media Server – IIS Add-on  Random-access: Can fast forward/move around content immediately

MIME Types  You must at the MIME type for XAML to the website configuration to support Silverlight . XAML = application/xaml+xml .XAP = application/x- silverlight-app

Integrating with Web Analytics  Measuring the performance of your website with respect to business goals.  Most web analytics services use JavaScript page tags  JavaScript page tags can be triggered by Silverlight events  Scenarios:  Track Silverlight installation rate  Track user interaction behavior  Track media drop-off with progressive download  Track media buffering

Web Analytics: User Interaction  Track version number of Silverlight  Analytics can be introduced at any stage of the web development process  With compiled RIA formats, analytics must be introduced before design is created.  Add Event handlers that then call page tags 

Web Analytics: Media Drop-Off  Use invisible media markers every 5 seconds inserted in media when it is initially loaded.  Media markers trigger JavaScript events  JavaScript events call page tags  Buffering events call page tags

Web Analytics: A/B Testing  Design in XAML is separated from the code in JavaScript  Very easy to try different XAML in controlled tests  Panel Discussion on Silverlight + Web Analytics at Mix Conference  Omniture, WebTrends, Microsoft AdCenter 

Integrating with CDNs  What should be on CDNs?  Images  Video  Audio  Use Silverlight.Live.com as your own CDN (10GB free space for SL apps + media)  Cross-Domain Data Access  SL 1 cannot access services across domains  XAML  Web Services  SL 2 can use a CrossDomain.xml policy file

Additional Services around Silverlight  RIA Design & Development using Expression Blend  Media Encoding using Expression Encoder  Media Storage

Resources  Silverlight Community:  My Blog:  Thank You!  Michael S. Scherotter 