Take advantage of Broadcom Crystal HD

[richard]

I have a Foxconn nettop with a dual-core Atom, a Broadcom Crystal HD, and 2gb RAM. What is the best way to get the most out of this setup?

Now I'm running a vanilla install of Ubuntu 10.10, but I'm OS agnostic and like Windows 7, too. I used to use XBMC, but I really love the social aspects of boxee. Does Windows 7 boxee support Crystal HD? Is there a real performance gain from using the Crystal HD? As for my usage, I tend to do more local files than streaming, but if using Crystal HD improved streaming performance, I'd probably changes my habits.

Thanks! Most of the threads I saw on this topic were circa 2009 and ATV-centric.

[Prospero424]

Well, Boxee's not listed in their supported software, but it couldn't hurt to try.

But if your Atom already has video acceleration via the Ion video chipset (like most nettops do), then you're really not going to gain much (if anything), anyway.

Still, the only way we're going to find out about this hardware/software combination is if someone out there play around with it and lets us know. Wish I could help.

[Taichan]

Well, Boxee's not listed in their supported hardware, but it couldn't hurt to try.

But if your Atom already has video acceleration via the Ion video chipset (like most nettops do), then you're really not going to gain much (if anything), anyway.

Still, the only way we're going to find out about this hardware/software combination is if someone out there play around with it and lets us know. Wish I could help.

If he has an broadcom HD hes not likely to have Ion video chipset. as they are compilation, sadly i can't provide information on if boxee's codecs can't take advantage of it

[Prospero424]

I thought the Crystal HD was an add-on card, but it sounds like it may not be in this case.

Anyway, let us know if you find out anything.

[richard]

Thanks, all, for the help! If I find anything, I'll post.

To clear it up, this nettop has integrated intel graphics with a broadcom crystal hd decoder. I think crystal hd is also offered as a pci express card, but in this nettop it's integrated.

Broadcom has drivers for windows and they're available for linux (I think). XBMC has an option to use the crystal hd and I thought that maybe this had trickled through to boxee, but maybe not. I'll keep tinkering.