cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Anonymous User
Not applicable

Why do you use Silverlight?

Why do you use Silverlight?

 

I use Chrome, mainly on an old Macbook nowadays, and as you know based on the sticky I just read, Chrome no longer supports Silverlight.

 

So why haven't you moved to a platform that Chrome does support, like HTML5? Netflix has, and it works fine. iPlayer uses flash, but also works fine.

 

I don't use any other browser - they all run too slowly for me on my network connection. They're just unusable. So, how do I watch NowTV? It looks like I can't (on desktop) - this just isn't good enough. You should factor all changes into a service you provide - and this includes updating to different technologies if previously used ones become deprecated.

 

So, to consolidate my two questions (and I want a full answer, not just a macro response):

 

  • Why do you use Silverlight?
  • When will you be moving to a newer, more comaptible platform?

Thanks,

Liam

23 REPLIES 23
Anonymous User
Not applicable

@Anonymous User

 

Thanks for that explanation, it did seem way too basic to be of any real use

Anonymous User
Not applicable
Whenever I try to use my Mac it tells me there is a silverlight issue. I then proceed to delete and reinstall silverlight. This sometimes works. I have never known a time when I have gone to nowtv and it has just worked - unlike netflix. Over the last three days I have deleted and reinstalled silverlight 20+ times and it still doesn't make a difference
Anonymous User
Not applicable

I do find it astonishing that there is limited support here from Sky, as my experience thus far is:

 

Bought a ChromeCast to enable me to watch Netflix on my big TV.

 

Happily took a three month trial with NowTV as per the offers from Google on purchase.

 

Discovered when about to cast a show, through Chrome on my Mac that the Chrome browser was not supported due to the Silverlight issue.

 

Discovered that I could not 'Chromecast' NowTV by any other method.

 

Watched one episode of something on my laptop.

 

Gave up and stuck with Netflix (4 years of it now).

 

Broke Macbook and since they're quite expensive, replaced it with a laptop running Linux.

 

Tried to use NowTV having signed up for a month's Movie trial.

 

Met Silverlight issue again (even after attempting a long winded work around).

 

And that, thankfully is not a great loss to me, as I didn't pay for anything, but is certainly dissapointing, but makes me glad that I've never had a Sky subscription in my life, and thanks to experiences such as this, probably never will. Looks like the American's have won the TV/Film streaming service before Sky even realised what was on offer.

Anonymous User
Not applicable

@Anonymous User wrote:

Discovered that I could not 'Chromecast' NowTV by any other method.


Do you not own an iPhone, iPad, Android mobile or tablet? All of these will allow you to cast to the Chromecast.

Anonymous User
Not applicable

+1, just signed up and found the service is actually useless, doesn't work on Chrome/Mac, can't therefore Chromecast.

 

How can you sell a commercial service which is tied to Silverlight in this decade - even Microsoft have deprecated it now. Not fit for purpose, off to Netflix, do let me know when you've worked out that we are in 2015 not 2007!

 

Anonymous User
Not applicable

@Anonymous User regardless of Silverlight, you've never been able to watch NOW TV via Chromecast from Chrome browser (even when it was compatible a few months back). NOW TV's Chromecast functionality is designed to work with our iOS or Android apps - you can use them to easily control what you watch on your TV.

 

I'm guessing you don't have either an iOS or Android phone?

 

Thanks,

 

Tom

Anonymous User
Not applicable

Thanks for the reply, yes I do have access to both Android and iOS devices, but they aren't the most suitable devices for continuous media viewing because it kills the battery.

 

Why would I want to view on/via a phone, killing the battery so that I have to go and find the charger, tether it on the end of a 1m charging cord to a socket on the other side of the room where I can't reach it and have the phone get red hot just to keep it going long enough to reach the end of the content! 

 

I have a MacBook Pro already on my lap which gives me about 6 hours battery life without any of that faff! Given the choice, I will always use the most suitable device. Netflix, iPlayer etc have no problems with this, only NowTV seems to use obsolete Silverlight technology which doesn't work properly in the browser that most people now use.

 

Daft decision and your loss, but how do I get the month I signed up for before I realised the service was so crippled refunded?

Anonymous User
Not applicable

@Anonymous User that's not how it works. You use the iOS or Android device to start the stream, then the Chromecast connects directly to NOW TV to play out. You can close the app on your phone, do what you want with the phone, even switch it off, and the Chromecast will keep going. 

 

I know it's not exactly the same as what you're used to, but can you give it a try? The Chromecast doesn't even need to be on the same WiFi network as your phone. 

 

Thanks, 

 

Tom 

Anonymous User
Not applicable

I have an idea.

 

Get with the times and support HTML5 like Netflix, Amazon and Youtube does.

 

Why on earth are you still requiring a plugin that has been discontinued when modern web browsers support HTML5?

Anonymous User
Not applicable

Mozilla plans to drop support for all NPAPI plugins except for Flash in March 2017, when Firefox version 52 is released. See this article and this blog post for details.

 

Taken from:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/use-silverlight-plugin-play-audio-and-video

 

Do NowTV have any plans on moving away from Silverlight before this happens?  As this would leave many of us without a choice but to cancel our subscriptions.