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PlayReady in Silverlight

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Web plug-ins phasing out

The commercial media industry is undergoing a major transition as content providers move away from proprietary web plug-in based delivery mechanisms (such as Flash or Silverlight), and replace them with unified plug-in free video players that are based on HTML5 specifications and commercial media encoding capabilities. Browsers are moving away from plug-ins as well, as Microsoft Edge is with ActiveX, and toward more secure extension models.

The transition to plug-in free media has been enabled through the recent development of new specifications:

  • From W3C: Media Source Extensions for adaptive streaming and Encrypted Media Extensions for content protection.

  • From the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG): DASH and Common Encryption (CENC).

These specifications were designed and developed to enable interoperable streaming to a variety of media platforms and devices. By focusing on interoperable solutions, content providers are able to reduce costs and at the same time users are able to access the content they want on the device they prefer using the application or web browser of their choice. Microsoft believes that this is a huge benefit to both content producers and consumers, and is committed to supporting companies that make this transition.

With these changes in mind, support for ActiveX has been discontinued in Microsoft Edge, and that includes removing support for Silverlight. Microsoft continues to support Silverlight, and Silverlight out-of-browser applications can continue to use it. Silverlight will also continue to be supported in Internet Explorer 11, so sites continue to have Silverlight options in Windows 10. At the same time, Microsoft encourages companies that are using Silverlight for media to begin the transition to DASH/MSE/CENC/EME based designs and to follow a single encoding work flow enabled by CENC. This represents the most broadly interoperable solution across browsers, platforms, content, and devices going forward.

Continue to run your Silverlight applications

Given the growing restrictions to run Silverlight applications in modern browsers, users may find it difficult to use Silverlight in-browser applications. One way to continue offering an existing Silverlight application on Windows 7 and MacOS to users is to turn it into a Silverlight out-of-browser application, installed with a standalone installer (installer.exe). To do this:

  • Change the application configuration to Out-Of-Browser.
  • Develop a standalone installer to help users get through the hurdle of installing the application on supported browsers and browser versions.

New applications should use an SDK

Our recommended approach for developing Windows 7 and MacOS applications using PlayReady is to use a PlayReady SDK provided by a Microsoft partner. The SDK may be an Electron SDK, or any other type for Windows or Mac native applications. For more information, see the list of PlayReady partners.