Logic Supply released the new version of the BCM970012 today. BCM970015 Broadcom Crystal HD Hardware Decoder.
It's about half the size and low power (1-watt).
Broadcom BCM970015
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
I have an NM10 board with a 510 (Intel BOXD510MO Intel Atom D510 Intel NM10 Mini ITX).
The thing that has stopped me from buying one of these decoders for this m/b is that the NM10 only has d-sub outputs. This decoder wouldn't change that.
In the past, with other m/bs, d-sub output would hurt my eyes to the extent I couldn't use it and had to have it hooked up through the dvi output. This Intel board has d-sub, but for some reason the output is good enough that it doesn't hurt my eyes. And that is with the same monitor. Still, I just feel that to have this decoder, without dvi output from m/b, seems like a waste. I would rather put the money to a new m/b, perhaps the new AMD Onario, Fusion or whatever they call it.
The thing that has stopped me from buying one of these decoders for this m/b is that the NM10 only has d-sub outputs. This decoder wouldn't change that.
In the past, with other m/bs, d-sub output would hurt my eyes to the extent I couldn't use it and had to have it hooked up through the dvi output. This Intel board has d-sub, but for some reason the output is good enough that it doesn't hurt my eyes. And that is with the same monitor. Still, I just feel that to have this decoder, without dvi output from m/b, seems like a waste. I would rather put the money to a new m/b, perhaps the new AMD Onario, Fusion or whatever they call it.
Re: Broadcom BCM970015
I purchased the BCM970015 for use in my Thinkpad x61s, which functions as my HTPC.
The Thinkpad runs on a Intel Core 2 Duo L7500 @ 1.60 GHz, with an integrated Intel X3100 GPU (no hardware acceleration of h.264 files). Previously I was mostly limited to 720p content using either CoreAVC or ffdshow-MT. I could sometimes get away with 1080p if I turned off deblocking, etc. but the results were not consistent.
The Broadcom card now gives smooth playback of 1080p videos with low CPU usage. My laptop has a tendency to throttle the CPU unpredictably, so the low CPU usage is very important.
The Broadcom card also supports MPEG-2 acceleration, but I get jerky playback of Xvid files, so I am sticking to software decoding of Xvid for now. There aren't that many long, high-bitrate Xvid videos anymore anyway.
Overall I am happy with the card. I think chipset makers should be looking more carefully at specialized video decoding hardware and designing integrated GPUs around this goal, instead of including gaming features that invariably suck.
An interesting alternative to the Broadcom card is to build/buy an adapter that allows you to use a full-size graphics card with a miniPCIe slot. This also allows you to get DVI output, for an interesting solution: http://forum.notebookreview.com/gaming- ... idock.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The Thinkpad runs on a Intel Core 2 Duo L7500 @ 1.60 GHz, with an integrated Intel X3100 GPU (no hardware acceleration of h.264 files). Previously I was mostly limited to 720p content using either CoreAVC or ffdshow-MT. I could sometimes get away with 1080p if I turned off deblocking, etc. but the results were not consistent.
The Broadcom card now gives smooth playback of 1080p videos with low CPU usage. My laptop has a tendency to throttle the CPU unpredictably, so the low CPU usage is very important.
The Broadcom card also supports MPEG-2 acceleration, but I get jerky playback of Xvid files, so I am sticking to software decoding of Xvid for now. There aren't that many long, high-bitrate Xvid videos anymore anyway.
Overall I am happy with the card. I think chipset makers should be looking more carefully at specialized video decoding hardware and designing integrated GPUs around this goal, instead of including gaming features that invariably suck.
An interesting alternative to the Broadcom card is to build/buy an adapter that allows you to use a full-size graphics card with a miniPCIe slot. This also allows you to get DVI output, for an interesting solution: http://forum.notebookreview.com/gaming- ... idock.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
-
xboxhaxorz
- Posts: 21
- Joined: Sun Mar 02, 2008 5:27 pm
- Location: USA
Re: Broadcom BCM970015
i know this is an old post, but looking for the broadcom adapter i came across this thread. i then found the link to making a diy external video card connector, which is equally great.
thanks for the link, im gonna start building my own
thanks for the link, im gonna start building my own