Beijing Olympics give Microsoft’s Silverlight a Boost

More than 2,000 hours of live Beijing Olympic content and 3,000 hours of on-demand video will be made accessible online via NBCOlympics.com during the Games period. NBC had originally chosen to use Adobe’s Flash for streaming, but eventually chose Microsoft’s Silverlight due to its superior reproduction quality.

Microsoft is hoping that its role in the Olympics will both prompt downloads of Silverlight in the short term, as well as help give its video-streaming technology a much-needed boost. However, those that can’t get or don’t want Silverlight will still
be able to watch video from the NBCOlympics site, without access to some of the cooler features - the enhanced player allows picture-in-picture viewing of two events and a “control room” experience where true junkies can watch four events at a time.

Apparently the quality of the Olympic footage relayed on Silverlight is very good, although there have been a few problems getting reliable and relevant commentary. NBC wants bloggers to provide their own commentary, although this has led to mixed results.

The PC isn’t the only innovative ways to view Olympics content – a smaller range of programming is also being offered through cellphones, video-on-demand services, and as “on-the-go” content that can be downloaded to a laptop or bought via Amazon or Microsoft’s Zune service.

To counter the growing threat from Silverlight, Adobe released Adobe AIR last year.  The two companies have now entered a steadily intensifting war of attrition - although both may happily co-exist side for some time, history shows that eventually the market will pick a favorite.

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