New Features in Silverlight 5

Improved media support

·        Low Latency Audio Playback: Use the SoundEffect API to trigger low-latency sound

·        Variable Speed Playback: allows video to be played at different speeds and supports fast-forward and rewind. At up to twice the speed, audio pitch correction allows users to watch videos while preserving a normal audio pitch.

·        H/W Decode of H.264 media: Significant performance improvements with H.264 media decoding of unprotected content

·        DRM Key Rotation/LiveTV Playback: Long-running live TV playback protected through the use of rotating licenses

·        Application-Restricted Media: Prevents playback of protected content in unauthorized applications

Improved Text support

·         Text Tracking & Leading: Exercise fine-grained control over the spacing between characters and lines in your text

·         Linked Text Containers: Create linked RichTextBlocks that allow text to flow seamlessly from one to the next

·         OpenType and Pixel Snapped Text : Improved text clarity

·         Postscript vector printing: reduces the size of print jobs and improves rendering quality of text

·         Performance improvements for Block Layout Engine.

Building next-generation business applications

·         PivotViewer -- now included in SDK. Adds support for dynamic client-based collections, XAML-based visuals, and customizability.

·         ClickCount: Add support for multi-click to your application

·         Listbox/ComboBox type-ahead text searching: Listboxes and ComboBoxes can now scroll based on text input

·         Ancestor RelativeSource Binding: Bind to a property on a parent control

·         Implicit DataTemplates: Allow DataTemplates to be defined implicitly

·         DataContextChanged event

·         Added PropertyChanged to the UpdateSourceTrigger enum

·         Save File and Open File Dialog: Specify a default filename when you launch your SaveFileDialog and specify a default directory when you launch your OpenFileDialog

·         Databinding Debugging: Set a breakpoint directly in XAML, examine locals, and debug your bindings

·         Custom Markup Extensions: Execute custom code at XAML parse time

·         Binding on Style Setters: You can now specify a binding within a style

Silverlight 5 performance improvements

·         Parser Performance Improvements: Improved XAML parse times for UserControls & ResourceDictionaries

·         Network Latency Improvements: Significant performance improvement in ClientHttpWebRequest scenarios

·         H/W accelerated rendering in IE9 windowless mode: Silverlight now uses the new SurfacePresenter APIs for H/W accelerated rendering in IE9 windowless mode

·         Multicore JIT: Shortens the start-up time for Silverlight apps

·         64-bit browser support

Graphics improvements

·         Improved Graphics stack: The graphics stack has been re-architected to add features such as Independent Animations

·         3D: Use the XNA API on the Windows platform to gain low-level access to the GPU and draw vertex shaders and low-level 3D primitives. Includes Render targets, XNA built-in effects, surface composition settings for depth/stencil buffers and multi-sample anti-aliasing

Silverlight 5 extends features of the "Trusted Application" model

Silverlight 5 extends features of the ‘Trusted Application’ model to the browser for the first time. These features, when enabled via a group policy registry key and an application certificate, mean users won’t need to leave the browser to perform complex tasks:

·         Multiple window support: Launch multiple top-level windows inside a SL OOB application

·         Full-Trust in-browser: Using Group Policy, deploy signed in-browser applications that harness the full power of full-trust functionality

·         In-browser HTML support: Host your WebOC within an in-browser SL application

·         Unrestricted File System Access: Read from and write to any directory on your system, from a full-trust application

·         P/Invoke support : Allows existing native code to be run directly from Silverlight

Tools improvements

• Visual Studio Team Test support.