BANGALORE, INDIA: Microsoft recently partnered with IPLT20 to offer live cricket matches to viewers through IPL website. With the help of the Silverlight platform, Microsoft's cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering next generation rich interactive applications on the web, viewers enjoyed the entire interactive video-experience through available web-browsers in the market.

In a recent interaction with Abhigna N G of CIOL, Arunjeet Singh, a consultant with Microsoft Global Services India talked about the development of compelling user interfaces for client applications which included applications delivered via the web (Silverlight) and those delivered as rich clients (WPF).

He also talked about the future of Silverlight applications and usage of Silverlight in mobile application. Excerpts:

CIOL: What made Microsoft to partner with IPLT20 to offer Silverlight during IPL?

Arunjeet Singh: While I wasn’t directly involved in that initiative, I do realize that with Silverlight, we have a cross-browser, cross-platform version of the Microsoft .NET framework optimized for Rich Internet Applications (RIAs).

As the chosen technology partner, we wanted to let everyone on the action. Not only can fans of IPL watch the action anywhere they are, but with rich features like a Deep Zoom enabled image gallery and a highlights viewer which lets fans filter highlights by teams, players or dates, the experience is so much more than just TV on the web using Adaptive streaming.

IPLT20.com was also another chance for us (Silverlight was also used by NBC Olympics last year) to demonstrate the power and reach of the Silverlight platform and its readiness to deliver rich experiences to a large set of users.

CIOL: You mentioned about Adaptive streaming in Silverlight to stream live cricket matches. What are the difference between Adaptive Streaming and other video sharing services?

AS: When you normally go to a video sharing/web casting web site, you are asked to choose a bit rate that fits your Internet connection. Options range from Dial-up (56kbps), to DSL (256kbps) to broadband (1Mbps) and beyond that for HDTV streams. Once the choice is made, you either end up with blurry video in a postage stamp sized window (if the chosen bit rate was quite low) or lots of buffering and breaks in the video (if the chosen bit rate was too high).

The problem is that the two variables (quality and bit rate) are interrelated and you are forced to make the choice at the start. Adaptive streaming solves this problem by dynamically modifying the bit rate of the stream depending upon what is available at any given time.

You can play a high quality stream, but if your bandwidth dips, the video continues to play smoothly, just with a lower bit rate. As a result, all you have to do is connect to the stream and start playing, no decisions need to be made. The system adjusts quality to always provide the smoothest, highest quality viewing experience.