high-spec Dell netbook; Re: Dell 27" monitor on sale

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Andrew Cowie <andrew-2KHxOkysSnqmy7d5DmSz6TlRY1/6cnIP at public.gmane.org>

| On Wed, 2010-10-20 at 13:32 -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
| > + 1366x768 resolution 10" screen
| > + Crystal HD Broadcom Media Accelerator
| 
| Any idea what the driver for that is?
| 
| Is it something proprietary & wrapped (like the original Broadcom
| wireless devices), or is it well supported but closed (NVidia), or it
| something well supported but open (ie most of Intel's graphics chips)?

>From Jarod Wilson of MythTV and Red Hat:
  <http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Broadcom_Crystal_HD>
  <http://wilsonet.com/?cat=10>

In this case, Broadcom have been very open.  Not sure why.  See
  <http://www.broadcom.com/support/crystal_hd/>

What's it good for?  Accelerating hardware decoding of video formats
(I'm not sure which ones).

Support seems to be needed in each application that might use it.
MythTV and XBMC are current targets (according to Jarod's page).

The Atom isn't good enough to do HD video decoding via software.  Nor
is the old AppleTV.  The Broadcom Crystal has been used to advantage
in both platforms.

My suspicion is that the nVidia ION is a better choice for this
purpose but that isn't an educated opinion.  But the nVidia driver is
not open-source.  And the Crystal comes in forms that can be added to
machines after you buy them (eg. minipci card).

Anecdote: my daughter says that her netbook with an Atom and a
1366x768 display driven by Intel chipset, under Linux, doesn't let
her watch youtube TV shows well.  I suspect that with an ordinary
netbook display of 1024x600, the performance might be OK.

Unfortunately, the Flash under Linux is unlikely to use the Broadcom
device.  Heck, it doesn't even exploit the nVidia ION (as I've whined
about in a previous message).  The Windows version of Flash does
exploit the ION.  Grrr.  Perhaps Dell's Win7 has a way to exploit the
Crystal with Flash.

Lots of interesting stuff if you google.  I've not absorbed it all.
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