HD Video on the Internet - Flash or Silverlight?

Flash and HD (H.264) Video. Compare ActionScript 2 and 3.

Fast video execution, combining with interactivity, is an important factor for the platform. Which platform to choose? A comparison between ActionScript 2 and ActionScript 3 shows that ActionScript 3 and the AVM 3 virtual machine in Flash are much faster.
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Render comparison between AS2 and AS3 : Note that AS2 can operate with only 10,000 pixels, while AS3 can work up to 50,000 pixels.



You can look at the render test , at work AS 2 and AS 3 with pixels. This is a good test, as it clearly demonstrates how AS 2 and AS 3 work with pixels, and therefore similarly with video.

By the way, it is worth paying attention to the fact that Flash Player began to support HD Video for a reason .
In principle, sooner or later it would still happen, but Silverlight's competing technology Microsoft , gave an excellent impetus to Adobe, and therefore the release of Flash Player 9 with support for HD (H.264) Video happened quite unexpectedly. By the way, HD Video Silverlight looks pretty good too (I'd even say great). And this item was one of the main (support for HD video) from Silverlight.

Silverlight and HD Video VC-1
To start the demonstration of HD Video from Silverlight:



Silverlight is actively promoting its HD Video on various resources, such as:

• Home Shopping Network Online
• ET Emmy's coverage
• MLB.com .
• Netflix

Flash Video features also allow you to create various interesting things, such as neave.tv . If we talk about full-screen video, with high quality and compare Flash and Silverlight, it is difficult to choose the leading technology.

But to be completely honest, at the moment Flash Video (or FLV format), yes, the leading video format on the Internet (remember YouTube , Google Video ), but not positioned as HD Video or generally as high-quality video. The time for the distribution of the new Flash Player 9 (which is now in beta) with H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC support is predicted for at least six months.

Although this is a controversial issue, since Flash Player 9 has been installed on almost 90% of computers with Internet access over the past six months, and this, by the way, is a revolutionary result. Why do we still love Flash? For its multiplatform. Since Flash can run under any browser and any operating system, this is just what Silverlight lacks.

But, then, Silverlight has a great plus. Silverlight 1.0 has already introduced support for HD Video, literally from the first version. And with its gradual development and prevalence, this plus is present initially, which cannot be said about Flash.

So Silverlight and Flash - the struggle for HD Video on the Internet starts at almost the same positions.
The only difference is in the Flash H.264 codec, and in Silverlight the VC-1 codec.
So the choice is for the format and standards. Doesn’t it make any difference, since both H.264 and VC-1 are HD Video? And who will be the first to reach the finish line ... Time will tell.

At least in this race, ordinary users (and developers) only win.