Update 2009-11-24: I’ve re-encoded the sessions that were up before cutting them in size by over half and since Microsoft still haven’t got their MP4’s up; added 7 new sessions (highlighted below with the Old Skool Yahoo! New! Logo!).  I’ll likely take these files down when MS put their MP4’s up, which I’m assured they plan to.

I can’t quite work out whether Microsoft are intending to make all the PDC09 videos available in MP4 or not.  There’s a column on the video page for MP4, but out of the 150 videos currently available, only 2 of them also have a MP4 version.  Being somewhat impatient I’ve started downloading and converting the sessions I’m most interested in and figured I might as well share the early-MP4 love; so I’ll be chucking them up here as I convert them.

Session	MP4
CL01 - Microsoft Silverlight 4 Overview	MP4
CL02 - Microsoft Silverlight 4 - Advanced Performance and Profiling Techniques	MP4
CL06 - Networking and Web Services in Silverlight	MP4
CL07 - Mastering Microsoft .NET RIA Services	MP4
CL09 - How Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Was Built with WPF 4	MP4
CL11 - Advanced WPF Application Performance Tuning and Analysis	MP4
CL20 - Improving and Extending the Sandbox with Microsoft Silverlight 4	MP4
CL35 - Custom Behaviours for Advanced Microsoft Silverlight UI Effects	MP4
FT24 - Building Extensible Rich Internet Applications with the MEF	MP4
FT28 - Microsoft .NET Micro Framework and Intelligent Devices	MP4
FT30 - Using Dynamic Languages to Build Scriptable Applications	MP4
FT31 - Dynamic Binding in C# 4	MP4
SVC23 - Using the Microsoft Sync Framework to Connect Apps to the Cloud	MP4
VTL01 - Code Contracts and Pex - Power Charge Your Assertions and Unit Tests	MP4

All videos are converted from the WMV versions using Videora.

Microsoft had planned on releasing a version of Silverlight 2 for Windows Mobile this year, presumably with the Windows Mobile 6.5 release – in fact on the Silverlight website it still says as much (at time of writing):

I know Microsoft had a working internal beta of Silverlight for Mobile (which I nearly got my hands on) and then had a change of heart and pulled it.  They had apparently had a “change of direction.”  Whilst a bit disappointed, at the time I didn’t think anything more on it.  Then the other day when I was showing the Sky Sports Centre app on my iPhone to a Windows Mobile owning friend, he exclaimed “it’s all so slick isn’t it” – almost in desperation at how clunky most Windows Mobile applications are.  This struck a chord.

Even though Windows Mobile 6.5 is largely regarded as a facelift release, Microsoft have openly stated that with it they hope to appeal more to the non-business users, an area dominated by the iPhone.  I presume with Windows Mobile 7 they intend to continue this focus, with the consensus being the OS will get a huge overhaul.

The question is – how big a role will Silverlight play in that overhaul?

Windows Mobile 7 will have a slick, tactile interface – it has to.  It must allow developers to easily develop applications for the OS that are also slick and tactile.  So what Microsoft technology allows developers to easily create lovely looking/feeling applications?  Silverlight does (and WPF).  Wouldn’t it make perfect sense to put Silverlight centre stage?  Not just “make Silverlight run on Windows Mobile 7” but make it an integral part of Windows Mobile application development?  We shall see.

The Xbox Zune Video Marketplace is another new service in the current Xbox Preview Program, allowing you to instantly stream movies in 1080p HD via your Xbox 360.  Presumably it will eventually replace the existing Video Market Place on Xbox, which requires you to first download the movie to your HDD before watching.  Being that a 2 hour movie at 1080p could weigh in around the 9gb mark this kinda sucks because a) it takes ages to download before you can watch it; and b) HDD space is not something the Xbox overflows with.

As with the existing Video Marketplace, the movies on offer are a somewhat odd-ball selection.  You get a smattering of new releases and then few hundred older movies – some well known, some quite obscure.  I’m not sure what deals Microsoft have in place for content rights, but you’d hope that if this service becomes a success the quantity and quality of new releases would increase.

Prices seem to vary in line with the movies age, with most offering one price for HD and a lower one for Standard Definition.  Once paid up you have 14 days to start watching it, after which you can watch it as many times as you like for 24 hours.

The service uses Smooth Streaming which seamlessly downgrades from 1080p to lower bit rates if available bandwidth demands it to keep the movie running.  I like the fact you get a sorta “signal strength” indicator in the Info Bar (main picture above) which you can check to see whether you’re getting full 1080p or whether the bit rate has been downgraded to maintain the stream.

Although I don’t think Microsoft have explicitly said they’re using Silverlight to deliver the video, we do know that Silverlight was pushed to the Xbox and the Zune Video Marketplace advertises itself as using “Smooth Streaming” – which is a SL3 feature, so it would make sense.

On Sunday afternoon I first watched Event Horizon in HD (380 points).  The movie rebuffered a total of 5 times and dipped in and out of 1080p every now and again.  Not ideal – but actually not that annoying.  Later that evening I joined in Microsoft’s mass stress test by watching State of Play in HD (540 points).  I had one complete halt of play that chucked me back the menu complaining of network interruption, but was able to resume the movie at the point it cut out straight away.  There was no buffering as experienced in Event Horizon and I didn’t notice the stream drop below 1080p once.  It was a truly impressive experience and one that puts the current performance of the Xbox Sky Player to shame.

I’ve just started looking at how we can leverage Jeff Wilcox’s Silverlight Unit Testing Framework in the current Silverlight project I’m working on.  There are some pretty long (and good) posts on Jeff’s blog about the framework that contain all the information I’m about to tell you, but if you want to get going quickly with the latest version – here’s what you need to know.

If this is your first look at the framework, then Jeff’s post from March is a really good introduction to the top level benefits offered.  That post was written for the SL Beta 2 release (which contains 3 binaries and VS templates).  The RC0 release only contains 2 binaries and some breaking changes – Jeff has detailed the changes, but the headlines you care about for getting started are as follows:

• There are now only 2 assemblies (Microsoft.Silverlight.Testing & Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.UnitTesting.Silverlight).  This is all you need.
• The Project/Item templates from the Beta 2 release, don't add that much value and are aligned with pre-RC0 changes, so are best avoided at this point in time.
• In your test project’s App.xaml cs Application_Startup() you no longer need to pass CreateTestPage() a reference to the application.
  • Example: this.RootVisual = UnitTestSystem.CreateTestPage();
    [ Previously you would have called CreateTestPage(this) ]
• UI Tests, should now inherit from PresentationTest (not SilverlightTest)
• Within UI Tests, TestSurface has been renamed to TestPanel
• If you're writing anything that you want to be able to test, it cannot be private.  In Silverlight, you cannot use reflection to access private types and members [details].  To overcome this, you need to make methods you want to test (such as event handlers) internal, and add an InternalsVisibleTo attribute to the AssemblyInfo.cs in your target project, to allow the test project access.
  • Example: [assembly: InternalsVisibleTo("MyApp.Test")]

If this is your first look at the framework, then the “headlines” above may not appear to simplify much, but I promise they do.  If you’re still sceptical, here’s a 3 point plan:

1. Read the post from March
2. Download the RC0 release
3. Where something from the post in March doesn’t make sense/fit with the code in front of you, refer to the list above.

So far, in my limited explorations, the RC0 release works without complaint against Silverlight RTW.

Originally posted on my EMC Consulting Blog