Holy freak, the Silverlight Beta 2 plug-in install is 17 MB.
I’m assuming things will get optimized down a bit for the final release, but it sure doesn’t look it will ever be a skinny plug-in. On the plus side, the plug-in for both Safari and Firefox was included rather than having two separate installs which is nice, but I didn’t expect an install anywhere near this size.
The install process went much better than previous Silverlight installs have gone. For once, Safari didn’t trip up the detection script.
I’m a little underwhelmed by the video players that MSNBC has rolled out. The branding is heavy handed. Do I really need to be reminded that I’m using Silverlight after I’ve already installed?
Standard video player on MSNBC:
Larger video player on MSNBC:
The Olympics are definitely a cool and unique opportunity to push a technology. Taking advantage of disruptive events is something I expect to see more and more energy spent on in the tech world. Sure not all of us have the deep pockets that Microsoft has, but we can all ride the wave.
It would be fascinating to see what events actually propelled people to install Silverlight. Was it general interest in staying informed or was it a particularly special moment? For me it was seeing Jason Lezak hunt down Alain Bernard in the 4×100 free relay. What an incredible sporting moment!
A few things I just don’t get. Why is there no fullscreen? This is supposed to be the opportunity for VC-1 video to shine, but we aren’t able to check out fullscreen, high quality video? Seems a bit bizarre. Also, every time I push the replay button on a clip I’m forced to watch a commercial. That’s just plain annoying and greedy. I’m watching a progressively served video (I believe since its not a live stream), so why do I get punished every time I replay the video (I’m not even leaving the page)?
This was just a quick initial reaction. I’m interested, as a sports junky, how much I actually turn to the MSNBC coverage. I’m getting an HD feed piped into two rather large screens at home, so the web coverage has to be pretty compelling to compete.
*Update*
Apparently I’m a bit late to the game with my criticism of the player. If it helps anyone out, I arrived at my conclusions independently and hadn’t read the previous articles / comments on the subject.
http://newteevee.com/2008/08/10/does-the-olympics-video-suck-for-you-too/
Ryan Stewart also just posted some links to viewing data which is an important consideration if you’re watching the space.
6 Comments
i especially liked how NBC told you *after* you had downloaded & installed sliverlight that you’re too foreign to view these videos. the video bits kept coming up blank until NBC finally fessed up. geez.
@PaulH - the lack of global rights is unfortunate and ultimately its a huge opportunity lost for MS to push their runtime across the globe. The Olympics are a global event, the Silverlight runtime is what MS hopes will be a global platform–it would have made a lot of sense to get the maximum reach possible, or at least handle the consequences more gracefully.
Not to nitpick, but is 17 MB really worth complaining about? Is it all that much for installing a platform and codec? Lets keep it in perspective like the fact that this post chewed up 1.2 MB of bandwidth according to Safari. :)
@MichaelM - That’s a good point and yes I’m guilty of bloated posts (all that rich media + a piggish WordPress theme).
I guess the big questions is how much are consumers willing to tolerate. I know the Adobe folks have studied closely the point at which downloads tail off based on download size. What the magic number is I’m not sure, but I know that 17 MB gives me pause even if its not a rational stance given how much bandwidth bloat I accept.
People aren’t necessarily rational. We often make decisions based purely on emotion and I definitely think that’s something that begins to come into play as you get into the 7-10 MB range. I need to be in a “must have” mindset once we’re over 10 MB.
We also know that people’s patience for a page load wears thin at about 7 seconds. Add 17 MB + install and your chances of keeping everyone on course gets pretty shaky.
While your points are all pretty much on target, it seems a tad misplaced on Silverlight and not just this one implementation. Granted, one would expect the best possible example given the opportunity–but still, it’s not necessarily all that Silverlight can deliver. I mean, what if I took any one Flash site and implied that all Flash had whatever flaws that site had?
I agree about the video quality but I suspect this is just a matter of either (or both) bandwidth and performance. Sure, it’d be great if they could pump 1500 kbps down to a million viewers (or whatever the number is) but that’s not realistic. They probably also wanted it to work–which should always be the #1 priority–which, in this case I think they’ve succeeded.
@Phillip - I definitely didn’t intend to imply that Silverlight was underwhelming because of MSNBC’s implementation. There’s been a lot of hype about this implementation and what it might do for the runtime’s popularity, so I’m just a little underwhelmed by the by the actual goods.
You’re right, I think they met most of their delivery objectives–we can watch a lot of reasonable quality video from the web and that’s pretty dang cool. As JD’s mentioned on Twitter, their were a lot of moving parts in the Olympics coverage and we should appreciate that web video coverage has taken a big step from where it was 4 years ago.