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

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 12:18:36PM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
> 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).

For 3D and other things, the nvidia is most likely much more capable.
But yes the drivers are not open source, and the free drivers will
probably not be around any time soon.

> 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.

Very likely.

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

-- 
Len Sorensen
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