Flash vs Silverlight

Flash vs Silverlight

Adobe Flash

Microsoft Silverlight
Flash uses the frame-based animation model. In frame-by-frame animation, we create an object for each frame to produce an animation sequence Silverlight is based on the WPF animation model, which is time-based instead of frame-based, so you define the start and end conditions, and it figures out how to do it
Flash uses a compressed format, and text and images are embedded in the movie, hence the file size of a Flash component is relatively small. Silverlight uses XAML for its description language, and it is non-compressed, so the size of a Silverlight component is usually larger.
ActionScript is used to program Flash objects. ActionScript is an object-oriented language with a full range of controls for designing user interfaces For Silverlight scripting, you can choose from among a number of programming languages such as Visual C#.Net and Visual Basic.Net, including client-side scripting with JavaScript
Flash supports multiple video formats. The latest codec is very high quality, and the bandwidth usage is nice Silverlight implements the industry-standard VC-1 codec for video, and supports WMV and WMA.
ActionScript offers a set of sound classes that can be used to generate and control sound in a movie. You can add sounds from the library while the movie clip is playing and control those sounds. Silverlight doesn’t have the low-level audio APIs you would need to write an audio application in the browser. It doesn’t even support playback of WAV files because .NET has very little audio playback support.
Flash supports Windows Vista/XP/2000, Windows Server 2003/2008, Mac OS 10.1/10.5 (PowerPC), Mac OS 10.1/10.5 (Intel), Linux 5, openSUSE 11, Ubuntu 7.10 or later and Solaris 10. Silverlight supports only Windows Vista/XP/2000, Windows Server 2003/2008, Windows Mobile 6, Mac OS 10.1/10.5 (PowerPC) and Mac OS 10.1/10.5 (Intel). Because Linux and Solaris support is missing, users of those operating systems won’t be able to experience Silverlight on their machines.
Flash stores fonts using shape definitions and the player doesn’t understand TTF, hence we cannot separate the text layer from the movie. Adobe has made the modifications to Flash so that it will be indexable, and the search engines have begun to index Flash Textual content created with Silverlight is searchable and indexable by search engines as it is not compiled, but represented as text (XAML).
Flash supports almost all image formats. Silverlight supports only PNG and JPEG file formats
The XMLSocket object implements client sockets that allow computers running the Flash player to communicate with a server computer identified by an IP address or domain name. Silverlight supports sockets programming through the System.Net.Sockets namespace. Silverlight supports asynchronously sending data back and forth across a socket
Flash has webcam and microphone support for live video and audio transmission, and using them is really easy in Flash Silverlight doesn’t support webcam or microphone.
The Flash deployment package contains only a single Shockwave (SWF) file, and all images, text and animations are incorporated in this file The deployment process of Silverlight is far more complex; all individual components need to be deployed separately
A Flash movie can be compiled into a Windows application and run as a standalone EXE file. It can also be played on a desktop that has an appropriate Flash player. Silverlight doesn’t support playing the movie as a Windows application.

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Published:
June 26, 2009 / 11:56 am
Category:
Flash
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