Playing video on most netbooks is risky business; any file with a moderately high resolution and/or bitrate quickly devolves into a 1fps headache. The solution, as HP has
already figured out, is a mini PCI-e Broadcom HD video accelerator, exactly what the folks at Terracode managed to wedge into an
Acer Aspire One. That enabled the system to handle 1080p content without a hitch -- through an external monitor, of course, since watching 1920 x 1080 content on a 1024 x 600 screen is like making a VHS copy of the
Watchmen Director's Cut Blu-ray. And, since the tiny portable didn't have enough storage for more than a few minutes worth of content at such a mighty resolution, a 64GB
Kingston ssdNow V was added too. The result? See for yourself in the before and after videos that are just a short click away. Spoiler alert: no more slideshow puppy dogs.
[Via
SlashGear]
posted Jul 27th 2009 1:27PM
First.
Now tell me in your own words, what is your jealousy level for not being first to post?
high. very high. kudos.
You outmanned me in every department ghex88, to this I concede.
**falls on sword**
OR YOU COULD GET A FUCKING LIFE.
My face is 0, 255, 0
If my room has to be that messy I don't think I want it
Windows only though right?
No linux support.
I've seen these for sale on ebay a dime a dozen.
Tempting, but no use for it.
But that is the wonderous joy of Linux, we are all waiting for YOU to write the support code for it.
I know these chips allow for watching downloaded or ripped HD files. But, does it allow for better Hulu streaming too? Or are netbooks still shit out of luck in that department?
My eeepc 900A with 1GB ram can stream hulu and netflix (non HD) just fine. Besides adding a 32GB SSD, the only other modifications were software: setting up a ramdisk and installing flashpoint (really speeds up the SSD!)
The card only has support for the program they use. Online streaming, such as flash and such is rendered on the cpu. No advantage there. This would really only help if you have a file playable on the program they used.
So the Broadcom HD video card is also a wifi card? I kind of got lost on that part.
The point of this is very much lost on me.
Well no one seems to have a problem with PMP's playing HD files, so why not a netbook. besides the idea is to plug it into a TV.
Where is ATi and Nvidia in all of this? I cannot understand why these 2 companies cannot make a sort of budget GPU for netbooks and provide one the way Intels Atom CPUs are now pretty customary on all netbooks. Yeah sure we can't get the full resolution on the netbook, but it would still be great to play HD content without a glitch. Everywhere you go, most regular laptops have absolutely crappy internal GPUs. Now given that netbooks are a lot cheaper, I can understand that they don't have dedicated GPUs but even ATI and Nvidia could come up with some budget chip that provides HD acceleration. Why have a lacklustre GPU with this broadcom chip when at least a merging of the two by the GPU giants would be more beneficial? It seems a decent GPU in netbooks and laptops will always take a backseat to everything else. If Intel / AMD can make CPUs that fit all sorts of budgets - MID/Netbooks -> Overclocked gaming rigs, it shouldn't be difficult for ATI / Nvidia to do the same. All these two companies do is make GPUs and even for the netbook market they cant even give us something decent. I'm not saying I want to play Far Cry 2 or WOW, but at least HD support at a time it is blowing up wouldn't hurt. The lack of anything decent from ATi / Nvidia is disappointing to say the least!
One word :
ION
Ion or Tegra
When it comes to heat and power consumption, ION is crap.
@Sax25
as the poster above me said, Nvidia ION is the perfect solution, with a 65nm 2-chip chipset and 9400M integrated GPU. Since I was curious about the specifics, I made a listing here that will help you figure it out.
The next big thing coming out is AMD's Congo platform, which will give the dual-core Athlon Neo CPU a great graphics chipset to go along with it. Laptops like the HP Dv2 should get upgraded from the older Yukon platform, and will make great ultraportable machines.
========== Current Netbook / thin and light platform =========
# Nvidia ION platform
CPU: Intel Atom Diamondville (45nm) or Intel Core2 CULV (45nm)
Chipset: MCP79 (9400M GPU)
Notes: Excellent GPU, supports DX10, decent 1080P playback, made on 65nm
# AMD Yukon Platform
CPU: Athlon NEO (1 or 2 K8 cores, 65nm, faster than Atom but a lot higher power draw)
Chipset: AMD 690E (Radeon Xpress 1250 GPU)
Notes: GPU is three years old, supports DX9, 720P, made on 80nm
# Intel Atom Menlow Platform
CPU: Intel Atom Diamondville (45nm)
Chipset: 945GSE (GMA950)
Notes: Ancient GPU, T&L and vertex shaders computed in software, 720P, 90nm
=========== FUTURE ===========
# AMD Congo Platform (Q3 2009)
CPU: Athlon NEO dual-core (eventually replaced by 45mm Conesus)
Chipset: AMD 780G (Radeon HD 3200 GPU)
Notes: The 3200 series GPU is comparable to ION, DX10, supports 1080P, 55nm (possibly 40nm)
# Nvidia ION-2 (2010)
CPU: Intel Atom "Diamondville" or new "Pineview" SoC (1/2 power of Silverthorne)
Chipset: Successor to MCP79
Notes: Unknown GPU, 1080P support. Maybe DX10.1 or DX11? probably 40nm. It is not even known if Nvidia will be able to
interface with the new system-on-a-chip Atom.
N10J with GeForce 9300 has been out for over a year, it can play Crysis, just check youtube
Wait, according to the guide it looks like you end up with no wifi card. TOTALLY POINTLESS!!!
Yes , you do lose the wifi card BUT i've been trying to find a way to install a USB wifi dongle internally in the 1000HE ... lets see what happens.
Not only that but it's still skipping in the second video. I can handle a slower 20-30fps rate as long as it's steady; but freezing for a full second is unacceptable, even if it does it less.
I don't get it. I have an acer aspire one 150 and I watch both itunes mp4's from the store and also xvid's from the net without a hitch and at very high frame rates. Sure, they are 1080 or BluRay but they are very very good quality. True that blu-ray rips from the net do bog down frame rate but again this is a $300 laptop right?
My jealousy at missing the first post is extreme btw!
i was going to attempt this EXACT SAME THING on my aspire d250 since it has a second mini pci-e card slot that's free at the moment. i was just waiting for the card to arrive!
eh im just waiting for tegra.
Tegra is ARM based, so if you're at all wanting Windows then you'll be waiting a while.
I'm with you, Sax25. come on you guys!
The Broadcom replaced the Wi-Fi card. A Wi-Fi USB dongle is used in it's place (Buffalo N micro USB Wi-Fi card). The netbook is able to view 1080P content which it was unable to do before the Broadcom accelerator was installed. Adobe is working with Broadcom on adding flash support by 1st half 2010.
WHY? at this point... why spend the time and money? you could spend less on a run of the mill laptop that WILL do hd video by default. this makes absolutely no sense.
Because the actual HD decoder only costs about $40-$50 on ebay and the rest of the hardware was just extras they wanted to do while they were at it?
The whole point is why is anyone trying to watch HD movies on some crappy netbook. That's not what they're made for. If you're going to pour more money into them, then just get a decent notebook.
As tech-loving people, I can understand this babble about let's soup up our personal netbooks, but this accelerator hardware would hit the typical netbook user like a lead balloon. I still have a feeling that netbook popularity will be on the way out and I think that even MS will try to end it's existence as soon as possible.
the whole point isn't to watch HD on your netbook screen, but on an external monitor that can handle the resolution, as it says right up there in the summary. seems like a reasonable request to me. I might actually consider buying a netbook when they are capable of doing this out of the box.
Sales of netbooks are expected to double in 2009.
They will never die, and any attempt by Microsoft to kill them will only add power to Linux.
Windows 7 is the first OS to run faster on old hardware, if Microsoft went to all that trouble I don't think netbooks will die out anytime soon.
iphonerulez, I think you miss the point. We're not watching HD videos on our netbooks because we prefer them to full size screens, it's out of necessity. Sometimes you're on the road and you can't bring a full desktop and 24" screen with you. And if I'm traveling or mobile it's alot easier to carry a small netbook than a full laptop; give me a netbook that can play HD and an HDMI output for a hotel TV and I'll be all over it. Sure we could recode all of our movies from 1920 to 1024 and have two copies on our hard drives, but isn't it easier to just have one copy that is down processed to fit the netbook when you're chilling on the patio and watch to watch a video clip?
It's not longer a netbook. Buy a laptop.
i can understand why bother spending more on the ssd, but what's the problem with adding a $40 video accelerator?
i know on my netbook i have issues with certain NON-HD video video formats, plus the netbook size makes it PERFECT to carry around.
also, some netbook screens seem better in clarity than what some laptops are coming with. yes, 1080p is overkill, but if i'm in a rush out the door, i can just grab a blu-ray or hd dvd (if supported by arcsoft) and enjoy the trip!
Did anyone else notice that the video comparison shows two cpu threads. Since when is the Aspire One packing a dual core cpu.
Hyperthreading.
You're just smart enough to comment, now go watch wrestling.
They have hyperthreading on them so they show as dual core.
Thank you Paul for commenting in a helpful and respectful manner.
And to Major4Play, I apologize for lack of knowledge as Atom processors go. My laptop runs a Core 2 Extreme x9100 clocked at 3.54ghz, so I haven't really spent much time researching Atoms. I'll now go back to my wrestling.
For anyone interested:
1. it requires proprietary player (ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre 3)
2. Adobe said Flash will be able to use it in the future
3. Dell Studio Hybrid also has it as an option for Blu-ray playback
4. If you can read Chinese, go to taobao.com and search BCM970012, only $25
yeap on #3
i have a DSH that has one of these.
it only works with the Dell video player however.
i haven't tried installing TMT3 on it to see if it will work there also.
but it plays back BR discs and rips just fine.
I am so damn impressed with this little BIG mod project. Hear hear for kudos! -raise glasses- Very well done mate!
DELL mini 10v with HDMI here I come
I get the same performance boost after installing CoreAVC. I think the hardware modification is unnecessary.
Download blu-ray rip
Stream on 802.11n to TV with n receiver / USB dongle
That's the whole point. Laptops and maybe one day netbooks will become media streamers, meaning you don't need to move data around to watch it.
Devices are getting smaller and faster but there are bottoms here. I prefer watching movies on a large tv rather than the tiny screen of a cell phone. Shrinking the iPhone much would make it unusable. We need video glasses and real voice recognition eventually.
I know that all this talk is centered around netbooks, but what I'd really like is a mini PCI-e format graphics accelerator that I can use in a regular notebook (not a netbook). I have an excellent T400 ThinkPad that I recently got for a really good price on eBay but it only has a crappy Intel integrated graphics chipset. I don't really need to watch movies and what-not on my laptop but more and more I am finding that if I had the ability I would use it. I could stream from my DirecTV DVR in my house or I could use Boxee if I had a decent graphics card. Anyone know if the Broadcom Crystal HD accelerator might work in a standard laptop like mine or if there is anything else that I could use instead? I know that these things don't work the same in laptops like they do in desktops but it seems like there is a huge market out there just waiting for someone to figure out how to accelerate graphics on a laptop. And I'm not talking about the ridiculous solution from Asus where you put a desktop card in a case and attach that to your laptop. That's not exactly portable. If anyone has any suggestions then I'd love to hear about them. Thanks!
They have an accelerator in Express Card form, which is seemingly designed for laptops like yours. Not sure if it'd work with boxee, or requires using their own video player, like it does for the min-iPCIe version.
@Tony...
As long as you have an available mini pci-e slot, it should work. The drivers are available for XP/Vista/Win7. Hopefully we'll see more apps taking advantage of it by year end. If more people show an interest, the software makers will follow suit.
http://www.broadcom.com/products/Consumer-Electronics/Netbook-and-Nettop-Solutions/BCM70012#tab=applications-tab