What is the Difference Between Microsoft Silverlight 5 and Microsoft Silverlight 4?
🆚 Go to Comparative Table 🆚Microsoft Silverlight 5 and Silverlight 4 are two versions of the Silverlight framework, with Silverlight 5 being the later version released in 2011 and Silverlight 4 released in 2010. Silverlight is a free web-browser plug-in that enables interactive media experiences, rich business applications, and immersive mobile apps. Some key differences between Silverlight 5 and Silverlight 4 include:
- GPU Accelerated Video Decoding: Silverlight 5 supports GPU accelerated video decoding, which improves video quality and performance.
- Built-in 3D Graphics Support: Silverlight 5 features built-in 3D graphics support, enabling developers to create more immersive and visually stunning applications.
- Variable Speed Playback: Silverlight 5 allows for variable speed playback of media content with automatic audio pitch correction, providing a more versatile media experience.
- Improved Power Awareness: Silverlight 5 has improved power awareness, which helps conserve battery life on devices.
- Remote-control Support: Silverlight 5 includes built-in remote-control support, enhancing the user experience for controlling media playback.
- Faster Application Startup: Silverlight 5 provides faster application startup, improving the overall performance of applications built using the framework.
- 64-bit Browser Support: Silverlight 5 offers support for 64-bit browsers, ensuring compatibility with the latest browser technologies.
- Automated UI Testing Support: Silverlight 5 includes automated UI testing support for applications with Visual Studio 2010, making it easier for developers to test and debug their applications.
- Text Clarity and Debugging Features: Silverlight 5 delivers improved text clarity and allows developers to debug data-binding expressions and set breakpoints on bindings.
- Content Protection and DRM Support: Silverlight 5 provides content protection for H.264 and support for playing offline DRM-protected media.
In addition to these features, Silverlight 5 also includes several enhancements for out-of-browser (locally installed) applications, such as full keyboard access while running in full-screen mode, programmatic access to a user's local document folder, and support for local Component Object Model (COM) objects.
Comparative Table: Microsoft Silverlight 5 vs Microsoft Silverlight 4
The following table highlights the differences between Microsoft Silverlight 5 and Microsoft Silverlight 4:
Feature | Silverlight 4 | Silverlight 5 |
---|---|---|
Release Date | April 15, 2010 | December 9, 2011 |
New Features | Support for Google's Chrome browser, webcam and microphone, printing, more mouse support, new notification support, new and enhanced controls (e.g., RichTextBox, DataGrid), theming of controls, rendering HTML, better localization | GPU-accelerated video playback, more than 40 new features |
Hardware Acceleration | Hardware acceleration is enabled in windowless mode with Internet Explorer 9 | Not mentioned in the search results |
Text Improvements | Not mentioned in the search results | Improvements to text that allow building rich magazine-style text layouts |
While both Silverlight 4 and Silverlight 5 are used for creating Rich Interactive Applications (RIA), Silverlight 5 has introduced more than 40 new features compared to its predecessor. Some of the notable improvements in Silverlight 5 include GPU-accelerated video playback and enhancements to text layouts.
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