You know Microsoft won an Emmy for H.264 right?
Scott Guthrie is close to being back from his vacation (which for Scott maybe a case of 20,000 emails a day instead of 50,000 heh as he was still somewhat active internally). He was recently interviewed by Microsoft Press Pass around some new developments for Silverlight in the future.
Below is the a snippet of the press Q&A that I saw from Mr Silverlight Video himself, Ben Waggoner.
It basically outlines we're in the H.264 / AAC game and will continue to provide Silverlight as a platform of choice. One thing however, I'd really love to amplify more is that we, Microsoft, won an Emmy for our H.264 stewardship and leadership.
This is great news obviously and well done to the folks in question for all their effort over the years.
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.
PressPass: Does this mean that Silverlight is moving away from Windows Media?
Guthrie: Not at all. This is about offering our customers more choice. Media producers and distributors around the world have enjoyed the high quality, flexibility and affordability of Windows Media formats for over a decade. As a testament to its pervasiveness, Windows Media can be found in almost every conceivable media scenario from desktop home video to feature films and TV broadcasts.
P.S
I'm yet to see any Adobe sites online using H.264 / AAC so if anyone knows where one may exist, please ping me as I'm curious to see how it compares in the wild to some of the experiences we've had success with?