KludgeHack

How to get started with Silverlight Streaming

Okay, some have heard of it, other not. Silverlight Streaming is live and you can start uploading applications and media.

What is Silverlight Streaming? Basically is a new Microsoft service for developers and designers deliver and scale rich media for their Silverlight applications. They currently offer 4gb of space to host and stream cross-platform, cross-browser media experiences.

You can start by visiting the service website on silverlight.live.com and create a Silverlight Streaming account (requires a Windows Live account). You then can host 4gb of media content, with videos of up to ten minutes in length (this limitation is similar to YouTube).

Tim Sneath posted a simple walkthrough of how you can use it:

• Grab yourself the trial edition of Expression Media Encoder;
• Take a video and encode it - make sure you go to the Output tab and choose a player template;
• At the end of the encode process, you should have a directory that contains the media file, some XAML and JavaScript files and any thumbnails that you’ve specified through the Markers tool-window.
• You’ll need to remove any .html, .aspx, .media, .csproj or .config files from the output directory. You won’t need these for the Silverlight Streaming service.
• Then you’ll want to add a manifest that describes the Silverlight application; for a default player from Expression Media Encoder (I used the Glassy theme), you can use the following manifest:

<SilverlightApp>
   <loadFunction>StartWithParent</loadFunction>
   <jsOrder>
      <js>MicrosoftAjax.js</js>
      <js>PreviewMedia.js</js>
      <js>EmePlayer.js</js>
      <js>player.js</js>
      <js>startPlayer.js</js>
   </jsOrder>
</SilverlightApp>

• Save the manifest as manifest.xml and add it to the directory.
• Now simply zip all the files up (make sure they’re in the root of the zip file).
• From silverlight.live.com, go to the Manage Applications tab and upload the application.
• From here, Silverlight Streaming will guide you through the remaining steps, providing you with the JavaScript and HTML code you’ll need to add to your page to access the streamed content.

Ian Moulster’s posted a short video tutorial on this walkthrough. The process is very simple, at least, after the first time.

There’s plans for a paid version of Silverlight Streaming, but I can’t find any details.

With this chance to instantly host and share RIA applications, I hope we will see new stuff soon.