UK commercial broadcaster ITV has dumped Microsoft's Silverlight for Adobe's Flash to stream a range of online content including hit shows such as Coronation Street, Emmerdale and The X-Factor.
ITV posted the following via a Twitter feed on Tuesday: "As you've probably gathered, we're now using Flash on our site rather than Silverlight."
The news may be welcome to Mac users will older computers. An ITV Player FAQ previously pointed out "Mac PowerPCs are currently not supported by Silverlight 2 and therefore cannot access video content on itv.com."
This problem was highlighted in a Macworld review back in May along with the less than wonderful picture quality.
This is not the first time Microsoft has lost an high profile client. Major League Baseball's MLB.com trashed Silverlight earlier this year, after just 12 months, in favour of Flash, baseball bosses considering Silverlight too unstable for a profitable subscription service.
The broadcaster has cited commercial considerations for the move, determined to reach the the greatest possible number of online viewers. ITV had been using Flash for streaming flagship shows including The X-Factor.
Despite recent financial woes ITV promises a popular mix of top entertainment soaps, drama, lifestyle, news and sport shows. Much of its output is available online.
Amongst an A-Z of contemporary shows available via ITV Player is an archive of content from ITV1, 2, 3 and 4 including sport, comedy and cult classics.
From the ITC archives comes The Prisoner, The Saint, The Champions, Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased), Space 1999 and UFO, while vintage comedy is represented by Carry On Laughing, Rising Damp and On The Buses among others.
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Comments received
Savo said on Wed, 16 Sep 2009
The site doesn't seem to work correctly in Safari or Firefox for me. Back to the drawing board ITV
@Savo said on Wed, 16 Sep 2009
They are having some teething problems changing things over - should be resolved in the next few days. Only a small team.
christopher Spence said on Wed, 16 Sep 2009
Typical ITV like with the football ITV got it wrong in a huge way going with Silverlight. Hope the guy who okayed that deal is begging for change on the street. When so many other sites use Flash why go with something different. No one wants to have to download a different piece of software just to catch up on their tv shows. I've got a mac and I never got it to work and gave up on it a long time ago.
Krvin said on Wed, 16 Sep 2009
Maybe M$ was kissing arse to get ITV to use SL. ITV finally realised M$ suck in just about everyway.
Richie said on Wed, 16 Sep 2009
It is a bout time, Microsoft is all about one platform, M$ and Flash will lead to all platforms and the next step WebKit as Adobe is a big supporter of it but too early for a WebKit site and Flash is the best choice today and one that ITV should of supported from day one, not a company hell bent in trying to reinvent the wheel for it's own gains.
Fallon Massey said on Thu, 17 Sep 2009
Flash is WAY behing Silverlight in my opinion.
Did any of you see the Sunday Night Football broadcast in Silverlight?
There's no competition for that player. Four Camera views to choose from(dynamically), instant replay of the live stream, and links to all the key plays for you to review at your lesuire.
On top of that, the video quality was superb. Still, Silverlight needs to get more market share to compete with Flash, but other than that, technologically, it's much superior, and that will eventually show up in the apps.
emsquared said on Thu, 17 Sep 2009
I understand Silverlight's supposed superiority to flash on paper but the two places I've had to use it have been the ITV player and sky player and both experiences have been very poor indeed compared to the flash based iPlayer. It's real world experiences that count.
Andy said on Thu, 17 Sep 2009
Let's be honest, neither are great. Slow with Silverlight or open up your system to the world with Flash.
Jonah said on Thu, 17 Sep 2009
Silverlight is just another addition to the long list of Microsoft's attempts to rewrite the world. They tried to beat the internet, they have tried to set html standards, they tried to make an alternative to Acrobat, etc.
If they concentrated on making an OS that worked and software that wasn't bloated they'd be a better company.
Andy said on Thu, 17 Sep 2009
Has MS done anything right since Windows XP? (Zune, XBox failures, Surface, Vista etc) The latest version of MS Office is a nightmare to use because they have abandoned menu bars. I guess IE is ok - not exactly exciting though!
Adam Schildmeyer said on Thu, 17 Sep 2009
Netflix uses silverlight and it works great. The things i have seen done in silverlight are amazing like a os running through it. Its like flash and flux combined and more. It also seems to be getting mroe stable as well... look at the silverlight app page for examples. Plus smooth streaming kicks flash to the curb.
ARI-Boy said on Thu, 17 Sep 2009
Hooray... for common sense!
Microsoft should just stick to getting its OS and Office apps right before persisting with these "side projects" which we don't need (or want)
Alex said on Wed, 23 Sep 2009
Most comments posted here are completely clueless about how video streaming technology actually works.
The client runtime (Silverlight or Flash) represents only maybe 10% of the actual video streaming solution. The real guts of the solution are player design, encoders, servers, content delivery networks, failover & redundancy solutions, etc. Saying a streaming website works better only because it switched to Silverlight or Flash is like saying your car goes faster because you painted it red.
The difference between a good video streaming site and a bad one is all about architecting a good backend, finding capable people/companies to execute the solution, and paying very close attention to detail.
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