Microsofts Silverlight has advanced to a level where it´s features and performance get contrastable with flash.
It took mere minutes to port Smart Normal from PixelBender (Hydra) to Silverlights shader Language HLSL (DirectX).
As with Astro, shaders are rendered via software – not the GPU.
The result is roughly comparable with this Flash demo of Smart Normal.
This was not intended to be a performance test but it clearly indicates that Silverlight isn´t inferior when it comes to video, shading or 2,5D.