Microsoft Silverlight 5 Beta ready for download

Go get it tiger

14 April 2011 12:45 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Microsoft’s Sliverlight has reached version 5, and the beta is ready and waiting for you to download it.

We thought you would be excited by that news, Microsoft certainly is. It’s just announced the immediate availability of the beta for Microsoft Silverlight 5, which provides a bundle of new features.

New capabilities include Hardware Video Decode, for enhanced video quality and performance, and “Trickplay,” which provides variable-rate video playback with audio pitch correction.

The Microsoft Silverlight 5 beta also offers a new Microsoft XNA-based interface for delivering 3-D visualizations within applications, along with a host of new features that are designed to enhance developer productivity and end-user experiences.

New features include:

- XAML Debugging with breakpoints for binding debugging

- Implicit data templates for easy UI reuse

- Double (and multi) click suppor

t- GPU-accelerated XNA-compatible 3D and immediate-mode 2D API

- Low-latency sound effects and WAV support

- Real operating system windows and multi-display support

- Significant performance improvements, fixes and much more