Ben Waggoner's Blog

I'm here in Amsterdam with furious jetlag, but happy to finally be able to discuss one of big things I've been working on for a while. We've been working on using Silverlight to deliver full interactive movie experiences ala Blu-ray and DVD, liberated from the shiny disc. I've been frustrated for years that, despite the PC being a much deeper interactive platform than disc players, digital downloads so far have included much less interactivity than even basic DVDs. They've just been a rectangle of video and a single track of audio: no alternate language audio or subtitles, no menus, no extras, no director's commentary. With Silverlight, we're pushing hard to change that. We've now announced our first major customer: UK retail giant Tesco. Here's the press release, and the money quote:

Tesco, one of the world’s leading retailers, and Microsoft Corp., worldwide leader in software, today announced a collaboration to launch the next generation of home video viewing. The new service, built on Microsoft Silverlight technology, will deliver a similar level of quality as consumers have come to expect from DVD and Blu-ray, but with advanced Web-based interactivity and a viewing experience that goes beyond other digital playback products in the marketplace.

Starting in the autumn, Tesco will allow customers in the U.K. who purchase certain home video titles from Tesco to download “digital copy” versions of movies to their Windows-based or Apple Macintosh computers in a “virtual DVD” experience. The digital copy versions will include a similar level of video quality, interactivity and bonus content available on the physical products. In addition, the digital copy versions will provide consumers with extra network-connected features such as auto-updated trailers, exclusive bonus content, movie viewing parties with online chat, related music offerings such as MP3s and ring tones, and networked games.

For those mourning my relative blog interactivity and going to IBC, you can get your fill of the live Ben Waggoner 3D experience at the Microsoft both.  I'll be at the booth at least several hours every day. I'll get final details up here before the show opens.

Microsoft is in the lovely-but-elusive Topaz Lounge again this year. Compared to the screetching din of a show like NAB, it's quite civilized, down to coffee in china cups.

The Topaz Lounge is situated on the First Floor of the RAI, nearby the Elicium and can be accessed from the Auditorium and the escalators from exhibition halls 2 and 3.

IBC will be putting together an interactive map and upload onto the IBC website.

Sorry it's been so long without any blogging. Between my class at Stanford, finishing the second edition of my compression book, and a profoundly cool project that'll hopefully be announced soon, things have been beyond busy.

So, Millimeter is hosting a live web event about Live Smooth Streaming, featuring the always-awesome John Bishop of Inlet and our own (also excellent) Tim Harader.

With those two together, expect an hour of real-world experience and context with awesome technical details and delivered with a charming Carolina lilt.

It's Thursday, July 16th, at 2pm Eastern Daylight Time (GMT -5)

You can register here:
https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=registration.jsp&eventid=153230&sessionid=1&key=00ED2EDFCB275415AFB7059389F8B18B&partnerref=mminlethdv4&sourcepage=register


Full description:

So, Silverlight 3 was released today, and the Expression Studio is available in a public release candidate, including the awesome Expression Encoder 2.

I'll have a bunch more to say about it, of course, but first off let me just provide links to the important stuff relating to the media side of things.

Scott Guthrie's always-excellent blog post roundup:
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/07/10/silverlight-3-released.aspx

Technical overview of media features:
http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/overview/media/media-details.aspx#smooth

Expression Encoder 3 overview:
http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/Encoder_Overview.aspx

Extensive blog post about Expression Encoder 3 new features (it is awesome):
http://blogs.msdn.com/expressionencoder/archive/2009/07/10/9828866.aspx

Alas, the RC of that isn't available for download quite yet. Soon, I'm told.

And I had this interview on Streaming Media about the new media features:
http://streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=11268

The newest in my "Silverlight Guru" interviews with Troy Dreier is up now. It offers a concise overview of some of the big features we have coming for Silverlight 3 and with our encoding infrastructure.

http://www.streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=11268

And the previous installments are here:
http://www.streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=11188
http://www.streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=11140

We're doing these roughly once a month, mainly driven by questions from the Streaming Media forums or send directly to Troy.

As Troy alwasy ends the interviews:

Submit your Silverlight questions to Streaming Media’s Formats, Codecs, and Players forum, or send them directly to the author at

The default player is only embedding at 848x wide. So I'll see if I've go the HTML-fu to embed big enough to get the full 1280x720.

Just got some news: tomorrow's Michael Jackson memorial is going to be broadcast live in 720p Smooth Streaming by Sympatico / MSN inMusic. The feed is originating from Canada, but is not georestricted! I think this is the first globally available Live HD Smooth Streaming event.

The event kicks off at 10am Pacific Daylight Time (GMT -8). It will hopefully be up as on-demand for 24 hours after, but we're still confirming the rights for that.

Check back tomorrow AM for any updates.


P.S. The Tour de France is also doing Live HD Smooth Streaming, following the success of the French Open. It's georestricted to France, alas.