Silverlight

Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of Microsoft .NET–based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. It is combination of different technolgoies into a single development platform that allows you to select tools and the programming language you want to use. Silverlight integrates seamlessly with your existing Javascript and ASP.NET AJAX code to complement functionality which you have already created. Silverlight aims to compete with Adobe Flash and the presentation components of Ajax. It also competes with Sun Microsystems' JavaFX, which was launched a few days after Silverlight.

Silverlight will support all major browsers on both Mac OS X and on Windows. Particular care is being taken to account for differences in platform and browser capabilities to ensure a consistent experience including experiences on FireFox, Safari, and Internet Explorer.

The Silverlight 1.1 Alpha includes all the features available in Silverlight 1.0 Beta plus a number of new features focused primarily on improving the developer productivity and power, including:

► Managed code support

► Support for dynamic languages including managed Microsoft JScript and Python

► Rich UI control model based on WPF

► Improved networking stack with support for REST, RSS, JSON, and POX

► Enhanced, two-way HTML/AJAX bridge

► Comprehensive and consistent base class library

► Support for LINQ (LINQ to Objects, LINQ to XML)

Silverlight uses a particular implementation of a XAML parser, with that parser being part of the Silverlight core install. In some cases, the parsing behavior differs from the parsing behavior in Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), which also has a particular implementation.

Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML, pronounced zammel) is a declarative XML-based language created by Microsoft which is used to initialize structured values and objects.

You are looking for Canvas, StackPanel and Grid

Storyboard is a Silverlight class with controls animations with a timeline, and provides object and property targeting information for its child animations

Yes, Silverlight supports 720p, HD quality with considerable performance benefits over other solutions. Performance is dependent upon the central processing unit (CPU) capabilities of your computer and configurations. Generally, in testing, a 3-gigahertz (GHz) CPU and/or dual-core support greatly benefit the HD playback experience.

Silverlight supports Windows Media Audio and Video (WMA, WMV7–9) and VC-1, as well as MP3 audio. Additional formats may be available by the final release based on customer feedback.

Since Silverlight is a lightweight cross-platform technology, it only carries the most common codecs that are needed for Web playback. However, we are gathering information from customers about the needed codecs and can update Silverlight when necessary.

Silverlight supports displaying static preformatted text that is comprised out of glyph elements and also dynamic text that uses TextBlock. With glyphs, one needs to position the characters individually while TextBlock supports simple layout.

Beyond standard and western fonts, Silverlight also supports East Asian characters, double-byte characters, and can work with any East Asian font or Middle Eastern font by using the glyphs element and a supporting TrueType font file that supports the requested glyph.

VC-1 is an industry-standard video format, recognized by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), and most notably ships in all HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc–certified electronics, hardware, and tools. Windows Media Video 9 (WMV-9) is the Microsoft implementation of the SMPTE VC-1 standard video codec. Microsoft initiated development of the standard with the release of WMV-9 to SMPTE.