Lovefilm have announced that they are switching streaming from Flash to Silverlight. This only applies to their website streaming and not their apps for iPad and iPhones.
Whilst this is pretty bad news for Linux users, early Mac users and at the moment Android users I can see the reasoning. Studio’s don’t like flash – it is to their minds insecure and therefore something they don’t want to support going forward and it sounds very much like the studios gave LoveFilm an ultimatum:- it is Silverlight or no films.
Whilst this is going to currently prevent Android devices streaming from LoveFilm I can’t see that being a problem for long. With LoveFilm’s parent company being Amazon and with Amazon taking a huge punt on Android with the Kindle fire. they have a pretty big incentive to provide a native android app.
Whilst Linux users are up in arms and questioning the decision not to use HTML5 streaming instead this might be pretty good news for Media Center users – it also explains how the XBOX 360 streaming is going to work.
As regular listeners to the podcast will know I’ve not been a huge fan of LoveFilm’s streaming quality on the PC and my experience of Silverlight streaming from other services has been much better.
Who knows LoveFilm might even start streaming in HD!
2 thoughts on “Lovefilm switching from Flash to Silverlight for movie streaming from their Web Site”
What annoys me about this announcement is it kills the ability to stream lovefilm through the boxee browser. SO that basically kills the entire point of buying a web-orientated media centre for the living room.
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What annoys me about this announcement is it kills the ability to stream lovefilm through the boxee browser. SO that basically kills the entire point of buying a web-orientated media centre for the living room.
A very good point, although Boxee do have a native client for NetFlix wh also use silverlight so there may be hope.