Upgrading Your Windows Media Player Online Experiences
For the past decade Windows Media technologies have been used for delivery of video and audio content over the Internet and within enterprise networks. The Windows Media-based ecosystem core advantages – low cost and scalable streaming servers, industry approved DRM protection, and high quality audio and video delivery – have ensured its continued popularity in the ever competing marketplace.
As the Internet has continued to evolve, we have seen higher demands placed on not just the core delivery of media content, but also on the quality of the user experience. This has in turn led to an evolution of web media players into Rich Interactive Applications (RIA). Microsoft Silverlight, a technology based on the eXtensible Application Markup Language (XAML) and .NET, provides a powerful development platform for building these modern, rich, interactive media experiences on the Web.
One of Silverlight’s core features is its support for the Windows Media ecosystem. Silverlight envelops the core technologies that make up Windows Media: the Advanced Systems Format (ASF) file specification, Windows Media Video (WMV) and Windows Media Audio (WMA) codecs, Windows Media Services (WMS) streaming, and Windows Media Digital Rights Management (WM DRM). In addition, Silverlight also embraces Windows Media-related technologies such as the SMPTE VC-1 video codec (based on WMV9) and PlayReady Digital Rights Management (DRM), an evolution of Windows Media DRM (WMDRM) 10.
With a strong emphasis on backwards compatibility, Silverlight is the logical choice for content providers, web application developers, designers and service providers with existing Windows Media infrastructures who wish to create rich, interactive media experiences on the Web. New capabilities such as support for cross-platform experiences, adaptive streaming for the highest quality delivery with the lowest cost of ownership, and protected advertising-based scenarios provide additional incentive to upgrade to Silverlight.
Kurt Shintaku's Blog 