Microsoft Talk

Q&A: Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft, talks about how Microsoft Silverlight is helping the global broadcasting and media industry grow their presence – and viewership – on the Web.

Microsoft Silverlight has recently played a major role helping to shape some of the world’s biggest events in recent months. Silverlight – Microsoft’s cross-browser, cross-platform solution for delivering rich interactive applications and content experiences on the Web – helped viewers experience both the Olympic Games and the U.S. Democratic National Convention on the Web, providing an interactive, high-quality way for people to view both events.

Later this week, at the International Broadcasting Conference (IBC) 2008 in Amsterdam, Microsoft Corp. will demonstrate an important new capability for Silverlight - playback of H.264-based video. H264 is a standard video specification that delivers high-definition video over a variety of delivery channels. During the event, Microsoft will also highlight how customers in Europe are reaping the benefits of adopting Silverlight.

The company recently made a strategic investment in Move Networks Inc., as the two companies continue to work together to deliver high-quality, skip-free Internet television programming over HTTP-based networks.

To learn more about these and other Silverlight milestones, PressPass recently spoke with Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Developer Division and the head of the Silverlight design team.

PressPass: Will you be showing or announcing anything new at the IBC conference this week?

Guthrie: Yes. At IBC 2008 we will be demonstrating a technology preview of H.264 video and Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) audio playback support in Silverlight, and H.264 authoring using Microsoft Expression Encoder and Windows Server 2008 for delivery. Until now, Silverlight has supported the SMPTE VC-1 and Windows Media formats, as well as MP3 for audio, enabling customers to take advantage of broad support across the Windows Media ecosystem, including third-party tools, service providers and content delivery networks.

We’ve always wanted Silverlight to support a variety of formats, so today we’re announcing that H.264 and AAC support will be available in a future version of Silverlight, which will offer content owners greater flexibility and choice to deliver video and audio.

PressPass: Historically, people have associated Microsoft with VC-1. Does this signal a change in direction?

Guthrie: No. Although we have been working with VC-1 for some time, it’s not widely recognized that Microsoft has also been an active participant in the standardization of H.264/MPEG AVC for many years, and we’ve included H.264 support in several Microsoft products. Microsoft’s Gary Sullivan was the chairman of the Joint Video Team (JVT), which developed the H.264 standard, and he recently accepted an Emmy Award on behalf of the JVT.

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