I use Firefox with Lightbox; no problems after doing a Sliverlight re-install.
However, I think I will be one of the '35%' who leave after the 1-year subscription. Lots of competition in this market and I haven't been sufficiently impressed with the content to continue as a paid subscriber.
I've had to switch browsers for things in the past, configuring some devices requires IE, its not a biggie. I'm not pissed off by it, takes 2 seconds. So no they wont piss them all off, sure some, but a very small percentage of their overall users.
Holy moley that's a conceited thing to say! YOU are not the majority of their audience. If they want to survive then they have to make it as easy as possible for NORMAL people. Geeks, as I said, enjoy the challenge of getting technical things working. Non-geeks do not.
reven: In an ideal world yes, they would have HTML5, but this will cost A LOT OF MONEY. Developers arent cheap. If they spend all their money now making everybody happy across all platforms theyll probably go bust quickly.
They need to do things in stages, currently for the next year they have a PC/Mac solution, so they can focus on other areas.
They will switch to HTML5, it will become a must, but not a must right now.
simple as that really.
It doesn't have to cost a lot of money, relatively speaking. And what is the cost in real terms? The lost revenue from customers who cannot or will not connect any longer and drop their subscriptions is going to far outweigh the amount it would cost them to build an HTML5 video player. Given that the other things you mention are not going to stop them from losing those subscriptions I mentioned come September, that lost revenue has to be a risk that they need to mitigate.
We're actively working on a Silverlight alternative that will support Chrome, Firefox and other browsers that allow for encrypted content via HTML5 (and have done so since last year). We'll still retain Silverlight for a while to deliver to older versions and browsers without the support.
Building an HTML5 player isn't terrible difficult. It's re-encoding your entire content catalogue to a format and wrapping it in a DRM that can be delivered via HTML5 that's hard - and modifying your supply chain to accommodate it going forward. Before doing so, you need studios to sign off on the security of your solution and design.
It's not simple and there's only really one major service that has done it so far. Amazon Prime, Now TV and lots of other major services are in the same boat. Google pulled the plug on NPAPI less than a year after implementing support for the replacement technology, which requires everyone to go back and redo their entire catalogue and redesign their delivery setup.
We're actively working on a Silverlight alternative that will support Chrome, Firefox and other browsers that allow for encrypted content via HTML5 (and have done so since last year). We'll still retain Silverlight for a while to deliver to older versions and browsers without the support.
Building an HTML5 player isn't terrible difficult. It's re-encoding your entire content catalogue to a format and wrapping it in a DRM that can be delivered via HTML5 that's hard - and modifying your supply chain to accommodate it going forward. Before doing so, you need studios to sign off on the security of your solution and design.
It's not simple and there's only really one major service that has done it so far. Amazon Prime, Now TV and lots of other major services are in the same boat. Google pulled the plug on NPAPI less than a year after implementing support for the replacement technology, which requires everyone to go back and redo their entire catalogue and redesign their delivery setup.
Thanks for this info...good to hear that you have been working on an HTML5 option. I get that it's difficult to change your approach mid-stream, but then it does raise the question as to why you chose Silverlight in the first place? Apart from Silverlight having effectively been cancelled by Microsoft as long ago as 2012, it's odd that you chose that approach. To now say "sorry - it's HARD to change" doesn't hold much water in my book. It just proves that your technical leadership is lacking, and always has been, as I said.
I'm not trying to criticise you unduly, please don't take it that way. However you need to understand that you have a problem, and it needs to be addressed. It's also a problem of your own making and noone will be impressed by complaints of it being too "hard"...
We're actively working on a Silverlight alternative that will support Chrome, Firefox and other browsers that allow for encrypted content via HTML5 (and have done so since last year). We'll still retain Silverlight for a while to deliver to older versions and browsers without the support.
Building an HTML5 player isn't terrible difficult. It's re-encoding your entire content catalogue to a format and wrapping it in a DRM that can be delivered via HTML5 that's hard - and modifying your supply chain to accommodate it going forward. Before doing so, you need studios to sign off on the security of your solution and design.
It's not simple and there's only really one major service that has done it so far. Amazon Prime, Now TV and lots of other major services are in the same boat. Google pulled the plug on NPAPI less than a year after implementing support for the replacement technology, which requires everyone to go back and redo their entire catalogue and redesign their delivery setup.
Slight OT - but in the above sentence you say that you (LightBox) have to re-encode. Is this how it works, i.e. that the content owners delivery in format A, but if you need formats B and C, it's up to you to re-encode? If true, thats a hell of a lot of work, especially if you do need to re-encode and not just change container formats. Plus as I understand it, doing so can lead to loss of quality (due to the maths of re-encoding a stream of data that is originally encoded using a lossy compression algorithm with another lossy compression algorithm).
"SKY HAS CONFIRMED that it has no plans to ditch Silverlight as a way of fixing Chrome compatibility in its Sky Go and Now TV services.Streaming services including BT Sport and Now TV have gone to borksville as Google presses ahead with plans to kill off support for Microsoft Silverlight in its Chrome browser."
Which makes me think the issue is probably not as simple as the experts on the internet who have never worked in a video streaming company would have you believe "well just switch to HTML5 duh!"
ETA: whoops, I see they already mentioned it above, but worth pointing out again I think
NonprayingMantis: Which makes me think the issue is probably not as simple as the experts on the internet who have never worked in a video streaming company would have you believe "well just switch to HTML5 duh!"
As one of the "experts on the internet" you're having a dig at here, I can tell you for a fact that just because I've never worked in a video streaming company, doesn't mean I don't know what I'm talking about. I've implemented HTML5 video playback, etc. and have had a long and (lol) distinguished career in software and web development. So I do think I'm qualified to state that implementing an HTML5 alternative is NOT technically that difficult for them.
It sounds like the issue may be in the "behind the scenes" side of things - encoding of the video content, compliance with suppliers' security (and quality, etc.?) standards, and so on. I can see that taking time, if that's what is required.
As I have stated already though, this should not be something that has just come up. Even before Lightbox was just a twinkle in Telecom's eye, Silverlight had been marked as "end of life" by Microsoft. And even before that, they'd given out enough signals that it was plain to everyone in development that Silverlight was a sunset product. So to have then gone and used it for the basis of their BRAND NEW service, and to build a business that DEPENDS ON IT, smacks of outright incompetence.
They should have been HTML5 FROM THE OUTSET, then there would be no nonsense excuses of "oh, we need to get appoval for the new video format and encoding from our providers, and we have to re-encode all the videos, etc, etc".
Google Chrome started supporting encryption for HTML5 video in August 2014, around the same time that we launched. Until that point, no browser supported encrypted video via HTML5. Building to an implementation (and encoding video to an implementation) that existed on paper only and would only support one browser wasn't really an option.
Anyway, main message is that we're working on the alternative.
Slight OT - but in the above sentence you say that you (LightBox) have to re-encode. Is this how it works, i.e. that the content owners delivery in format A, but if you need formats B and C, it's up to you to re-encode? If true, thats a hell of a lot of work, especially if you do need to re-encode and not just change container formats. Plus as I understand it, doing so can lead to loss of quality (due to the maths of re-encoding a stream of data that is originally encoded using a lossy compression algorithm with another lossy compression algorithm).
There are different models and different setups, but if you're smart you keep a "golden master" around to create new formats off. There are also other options coming out these days to allow more on the fly encoding etc. Still requires a lot of orchestration and logistics, though.
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