Silverlight Virtual DVD Now Live

Silverlight-powered Virtual DVDs were announced in the first half of September 2009, an initiative from Tesco, leveraging Microsoft’s alternative to Adobe Flash. At that time, Rob Salter, category director for Entertainment at Tesco, noted that Virtual DVDs were ushering in a new era of digital entertainment. The concept behind the offering is that UK customers buying movies on physical media (DVD or Blu-Ray) would subsequently be offered access to the content through Silverlight. Available exclusively in the United Kingdom, Tesco’s Virtual DVDs are designed to take advantage of the specific capabilities offered by Silverlight, including Digital Rights Management.

“In September, we announced that Microsoft and Tesco intended to collaborate and use Silverlight to deliver the next generation of Home Video entertainment to consumers. Dubbed “Virtual DVD,” Tesco customers who purchased physical DVDs or Blu-ray products would be able to download Silverlight versions of those movies providing the exact same experience as the physical disc,” a Silverlight team representativestated.

Microsoft indicates that Silverlight 3 is at the top of the game when it comes down to delivering advanced media and network-based interactivity, and that Tesco will kick its user experience up a notch by embracing the technology. The third major version of Silverlight works on both Windows and Mac OS X, and is capable of delivering 1080p high definition video playback. At the same time, with Silverlight 3, Microsoft introduced out-of-browser capabilities, allowing applications to be saved to the desktop, and ran even in offline scenarios.

“Now consumers can reap the benefits of that partnership, as two of the biggest movies of the year, “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” and “The Hangover,” are now available on DVD. Tesco is offering an exclusive bonus Virtual DVD to its customers in the U.K. when they purchase the physical DVD either in-store or on Tesco.com. Using Silverlight 3, the Virtual DVD applications deliver a desktop-installed experience that exactly replicates the DVD experience, including chaptering, bonus features, multi-language support and subtitling,” revealed a member of the Silverlight team.

Silverlight 3 is available for download here.
Silverlight 4 Beta is available for download here.