I use this software for Netflix and it works great on the Mac. The lack of progress by Apple to use Quicktime as af streaming alternative has me worried they are going to loose out in this market. AppleTV needs subscription based streaming offerings or Quicktime is going to become extinct in the coming generation of on-demand TV.

Avoid this like the plague. The last thing we need is a proprietary internet plugin/development platform controlled by Microsoft gaining traction. You need a Windows computer to design content for Silverlight... just the latest ploy in locking other platforms out of the market.

To late M$

No good except for Microsoft lovers ...

No thanks to either one. Flash is the most annoying thing on the internet these day. And as mentioned by WiseWeasel development of Silverlight content is only on Windows.

I'll stick with Quicktime.

If video content providers would use the standard video codex H.264 there is no need for Flash or Silverlight.

Microsoft tech only leads you down one road... towards Windows. I don't care how great it may be now, in the end, all your efforts will be derailed and left as Windows only projects. Good luck to you!

I refuse to install Silverlight or Air and have tossed out Flash on my desktop. These damn companies need to start supporting standards rather than investing in proprietary technologies. I know a lot of people think standards take forever to be ratified, but that's only because of companies like Microsoft and Adobe who refuse to adopt and support them.

Apple's OpenCL specifications only took 6 months to be standardized. If these big corporations got off their asses and helped, the web would be a much better place for all of us.

And there are still these STUPID morons saying that the technology is good and that you should install it in order to access HD on the web...NO f****** WAY!

sbarton05: Quicktime has streaming support either by using QuickTime/Darwin Streaming Server or more recently through http streaming. Don't confuse QuickTime with a service like Netflix. QuickTime is a video player, Silverlight is that and more. Silverlight != Netflix and QuickTime != AppleTV.

George3 talks about using h.264. Well this will help its adoption because it uses h.264. So does Flash and in Windows 7 Windows Media Player will too (out of the box). This means that you can now play h.264 video in QuickTime, Flash, and Silverlight. You can also play it using nothing but an HTML5 "video" tag in Safari and soon Google Chrome. If you want to complain about h.264 adoption then complain about FireFox and Opera who refuse to support its use in HTML5. The real reason that Silverlight is used in Netflix has nothing to do w/ streaming. It has to do w/ strong DRM. Silverlight has it, nobody else really does. I'm not saying this is a good thing as I hate DRM but it's a fact. As long as the iPhone stays dominant h.264 will be a huge contender. It's really what is driving h.264 adoption and is probably why YouTube switched/transitioned to it over On2 VP6.

mjtomlin: I'm also for standards and avoid developing anything in Flash unless it is absolutely necessary but you can't blame MS and Adobe. Where is the profit in developing an open standard. They are corporations with obligations to stockholders and employees. Also, another large problem with the lag in web tech is idiots not upgrading their browsers and plugins. Certainly they could make better browsers but developers can't really develop for those browsers until people actually use them.

Everybody: I don't like Silverlight and hope it dies but many of these complaints are stupid. I do appreciate that Netflix is finally able to provide me content because of Silverlight.

You need a Windows computer to design content for Silverlight... just the latest ploy in locking other platforms out of the market.

Gee, and you can only develop content by using a Mac.

Oh, wait, I'm sure that's different somehow. It's a marketing strategy or something, rather than a ploy. Esp. considering more people probably want to develop iPhone apps than silverlight content.

If video content providers would use the standard video codex H.264 there is no need for Flash or Silverlight.

But that won't help. Because the standard has no support for DRM, and content providers have a desire to keep everyone from just downloading and playing their movies. So if they support H.264, they'll have to add a DRM component to it (like Apple does with their iTunes videos) and then you'd need a special player.

And then you'd all be whining about everyone not supporting standards like Apple again.