Are you sure this is an NBC thing and not an olympic thing in general?
Because here in Canada we get sent to http://www.ctvolympics.ca and they're using Silverlight as well.
“You’re one simple step from…” Don’t sweat it Silverlight, I was just leaving
31–34 of 34 posts
Re: “You’re one simple step from…” Don’t sweat it Silverlight, I was just leaving
#32I heard a story from a friend that had to choose between Flash and Silverlight for an on-demand movie project. (DRM was mandatory, so H.264 was out).
Adobe asked for $30.000 for some sort of an Adobe Server. And this included literally no support. They didn't show one sign that they cared for him as a client.
Microsoft was incredibly enthusiastic. They enrolled him in the BizSpark program, gave him all the licenses for free for the first years. At the same time he was getting daily calls from Redmond and Microsoft engineers to see how they could to help him.
I'm not saying this is the case here, still, his site is now using SilverLight too.
Re: “You’re one simple step from…” Don’t sweat it Silverlight, I was just leaving
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand why they are trying to push 2 proprietary formats on us. You think they would at least try to stick with just one if they weren't going to go with HTML5.
Well the motivations for MS and Adobe are obvious. MS definitely (not sure about Adobe) chooses high profile video intensive sites to "partner with" to show-case their platform. In short, it's business.
I think the Olympics are 80% business, 10% politics and 10% athletic competition. No wonder NBC can call the tune. Since I don't really care about the Olympics (YMMV, 'sOK) I don't watch and don't have Silverlight installed.
I wonder if Adobe can build a Silverlight plug-in in competition with MS, just like the many .PDF readers available from 3rd parties.
Re: “You’re one simple step from…” Don’t sweat it Silverlight, I was just leaving
#34(If I repeat anything that's already been said, my apologies)
Silverlight is slowly becoming an alternative standard to Flash. Reason being is that it's more based on code rather than the custom resources Flash uses. Sure, you have to install something just like the Flash player but overall, Silverlight loads and runs faster.
I've been catching more and more Silverlight where on heavy video based content. All of Netflix's instant streaming is done through Silverlight. Sure, NBC could have just stuck with flash but honestly, their flash runs like crap.
I'm OK with waiting a moment to install a Silverlight player. Flash users already have to install a new player everytime Flash updates. What's the difference?
I think either way there would be unsatisfied viewers. NBC took a risk. Silverlight is probably one of the only things that Microsoft can impress me with.