Microsoft's Silverlight Player Not Required To Watch Olympics

While news sites have been reporting for weeks about NBCOlympics.com video offering, most have stated that NBC is forcing users to download the Silverlight player in order to see live and on-demand video. This is not the case. While Microsoft is pushing users to download the Silverlight player in order to take advantage of the enhanced video options and control room that gives you access to switch between multiple live streams, those who don't have the Silverlight player or choose not to use it will still be able to get stand alone video streams if they have the Windows Media player. When the Olympics start, users will be given an option to choose the Windows Media Player if they don't use Silverlight. Updated: Read this post oh how to use Windows Media instead of Silverlight.

This is good news for users at work who don't have admin rights to their desktop and can't upgrade to the latest Silverlight player. With much of the Olympics content taking place during working hours, those inside an enterprise corporation will still be able to get the streams and tune in to the action. While NBC has not yet decided on the bitrates the video will be encoded in, I have confirmed that multi bitrate encoding will take place and should provide viewers with some really good quality.

Many have been asking me today, how Limelight and Akamai could both be streaming the Olympics. They aren't. Limelight is delivering all of the live and on-demand video and Akamai will be caching and delivering a lot of the static content.

Comments

[Ray Harris]

Great news but how? After reading your post I went straight to NBColympics and tried to watch a video. A window popped up and told me I MUST install Silverlight to watch the video. I closed the popup and searched all over the site to no avail.

[Dan Rayburn]

Sorry, I left that part of out of the post and have just updated it.

When the Olympics start, users will be given an option to choose the Windows Media Player if they don't use Silverlight.

[Ray Harris]

Dan,
Thanks for clarification. BTW, I watched a lot of video on this site during the trials but when I went there today, I was told to install SL. Kind of odd that I watched videos previously, I have SL installed and am now told to install again. No big deal, growing pains I guess.

[Tom]

Wow-I guess you have to live in China to get the best video feed using FLASH and ON2's VP6. You would think NBC would want the best quality for the money they are spending.

[Greg M.]

ON2 just signed on to fix China's video problems they were having. They were using windows media player and it was slow and poor quality!! I don't know why anyone would choose Silverlight or Media player over Flash and ON2 VP6-S. CCTV.com made the right choice and I wish NBC would too.

[Dan Rayburn]

Is Adobe or On2 going to foot the bill for the CDNs to deliver this content? I doubt it. Remember, Microsoft is paying the CDNs to deliver this content. How much we don't know, but it's a lot. So NBC is not about to go use Flash and then have to pay all the money to deliver the content across Limelight. It's a business decision, not a technical one.

[Mio Babic]

Perhaps is worth noting that Silverlight (SL), just like Flash 9, requires install or an upgrade in case you had older versions already installed. Option to use WMP is presented as a part of SL installation notification for the Olympics SL Player. This definitely comes handy in corporate environment where privileges need to be elevated to admin rights in order to install new software. Olympics fans "cought at work," will still be able to tune in and enjoy, unless of course their corporate network admins take steps to block streaming video. Conversely, it’s just a matter of time before enterprises start deploying SL plug-in, yet again, just like they do with Flash. Although this might sound trivial, but every time a new version of Flash comes out, they have to go through the same process. In terms of SL adoption, most enterprises are probably waiting for final RTM version of SL before they do a mass deployment across all desktops. For those who had opportunity to preview SL based player at http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/ they have probably noticed a difference in experience between WMP and SL experience which I compare to using dial-up vs. broadband Internet connectivity.

[Ray Harris]

Greg,
I think your comment is a little off topic. If you have details on what went on to make China think Flash was better or why they were having issues with WMT you should share that with Dan outside of this forum as it would make a great post we could all discuss. My company is a webinar and webcast provider who has streamed WMT for over 10 years and we have always found the technology to be extremely reliable, stable and, when configured correctly, of very high quality. Yes, we are soon going to annouce our services will be available in either WMT or Flash but we will in no way be dropping WMT.

Ray

[abdul]

Please, boycott Silverlight.
Thanks

[Alex Zambelli]

Here's another useful note you may want to add to your post:

Mac users (particularly Mac PPC users) can also experience the NBC Olympics videos without having to install Silverlight. Installing the Windows Media components for Quicktime (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/wmcomponents.mspx) will allow them to have the same experience as WMP users.

[Kurt]

First off, it's really good to see Microsoft get back on track trying to force people onto their system. I like the encourage pirating suggestion. If something isn't available to you in the first place, how can you 'steal' it?

Probably a better option, links to other online viewing options from around the world:

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/8/how-to-watch-the-olympics-live-on-the-web-even-if-nbc-doesn-t-want-you-to

[Guy Mac]

Evidently, when the video is embedded in the RSS feed, there is no such option. This is freaking ridiculous. Micro$oft screws us again.