Broadcom Crystal HD review

Nick Mertes 9 Feb, 2010 at 10:04pm ET Article published in Tech

What can make a happy owner of an MSI Wind (or any other non-ION netbook for that matter) rage with all their might? High Definition video content. Sadly, the integrated Intel 950GMA graphics just can’t handle it. Don’t get is wrong—we can’t honestly expect 1080p content to run smoothly, especially when the display is limited to 1024×600. Or can we? If you factor in a little company called Broadcom, the answer is an emphatic yes.

The Broadcom Crystal HD is a PCI Express Mini Card that handles H.264, VC-1 and MPEG-2 content in any application that supports the card, and will support Flash 10.1 when it arrives. The card is surprisingly small, measuring about 1/2” wide by 1” long.

The main seller, Logic Supply, is asking $59 for the Crystal HD, but it can be found for much less on eBay (we found it for about $30 shipped from Hong Kong).

Binary drivers are available for Windows, while Linux and OS X users can build their drivers from source code provided by Broadcom. Currently, applications that support the Crystal HD are limited to Windows Media Player 12, XBMC 9.11, and ArcSoft Total Media Theater. The driver is open source, though, so support is likely to increase. The version of ArcSoft Total Media Theater that is provided with the Crystal HD requires the chip for installation.

Opening and installing

We installed the Broadcom Crystal HD into an MSI Wind U100. Opening the Wind is a very simple process. Nine screws on the bottom panel and some gentle lifting is all it takes.

Once inside the case, a very disappointing scenario can be seen: There is not an empty PCI Express Mini slot to install the Crystal HD. All is not lost, however. The WiFi card is a PCI Express Mini device and can be easily removed. Once the WiFi is removed, the Crystal HD may be inserted and secured, and the case closed back up.

Inside the Wind, about to remove the WiFi card

WiFi removed (left of HDD), ready for the Broadcom card

Broadcom Crystal HD installed (left of HDD). Now wasn't that simple?

This leaves us in an interesting position—we now have a netbook with no wireless networking. Two options are available: the built-in 10/100 network and USB WiFi. To keep the maximum usefulness of the Wind, a USB device is recommended. Should you also have your system configured as a “Hackintosh”, be sure your WiFi module is compatible with OS X.

Regardless of your networking choice, Windows 7 recognizes the Broadcom card and downloads a driver right away. At this point, your system is able to decode HD video with any Crystal HD aware software.

Equipment setup and test methods

MSI Wind U100 MS-N011

Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz (Single core, Hyperthreaded)
2GB DDR-2 533 RAM (Upgraded from 1GB)
Intel 945 Chipset
Intel GMA950 Graphics
Broadcom 802.11a/b/g WiFi (stock system)
Broadcom Crystal HD Accelerator (test system)
Rosewill RNX-N1 802.11n (test system)

Playback software:

Windows Media Player 12
XBMC 9.11
ArcSoft Total Media Theater (test system only)

And the content:

H.264 1080p: Top Gear Arctic Special
WMP 1080p: Coral Reef Adventure

Results

Side-by-side comparison

This side-by-side video shows a 1080p video from Microsoft’s own media sample web site. The system on the right lacks the Crystal HD decoder. WMP12 makes a valiant effort at playing the file, but just cannot keep up. The audio plays at the correct speed, but the video quickly gets out of sync. Not surprisingly, the CPU usage bounces between 73 and 96% for the duration of the test. Eventually the video will pause momentarily and re-sync, but that sync is quickly lost again. The system on the left has the Crystal HD installed, and handles the video quite well. CPU usage stays between 35 and 45%.

But can it…

Even more impressive is the ability for the upgraded Wind to drive a 1080p display. In this clip, we are playing a segment of Top Gear’s Polar Special (at the time the show’s only high definition episode). The video shown is an H.264-encoded file in a Matroska (.mkv) container played through Total Media Theater over the VGA connector on the Wind. As you can see, the video plays very well. CPU usage stays mostly between 18 and 30% with an occasional spike to the 60% range, but this could be attributed to system background tasks. Regardless of the cause, video playback is smooth throughout.

Conclusion

The Broadcom Crystal HD definitely has its benefits and drawbacks. The main benefit, of course, is the ability to play your high definition content with a fairly low CPU load. Given the performance with our test files, and the supported codecs, Blu-Ray playback should even be possible.

The biggest drawback is the loss of internal wireless networking, but this is easily overcome. Currently, software support is pretty limited but what is available easily covers all of the modern codecs and containers you could want to play that the standard Wind might find difficult. If you’re looking to build a (very) low power, low profile HTPC the Broadcom Crystal HD is an excellent option. It is certainly deserving of the Icrontic Stamp of Approval.

Comments

9 Feb 2010 ~ 10:37pm Thrax The Crystal HD is a nice product, but the lack of compatible players really kills its usefulness in my opinion. I sincerely doubt the developers of MPC-HC or VLC will ever take the time to implement Broadcom support, particularly when it's such a niche device that's in an even smaller niche of Intel netbooks.

It goes without saying that anyone who wants real 1080p performance from their netbook should simply get an NVIDIA ION-powered unit. The HP Mini 311 is a great start.
9 Feb 2010 ~ 11:29pm mas0n Don't forget GMA500. Accelerates 1080p without dropping frames if you run the latest drivers and decodes H.264 from Flash if you run 10.1 Beta 2, albeit still a little choppy but that's Adobe's fault. It's not ION, but it is an option.
10 Feb 2010 ~ 11:48am mertesn

Thrax wrote:

It goes without saying that anyone who wants real 1080p performance from their netbook should simply get an NVIDIA ION-powered unit. The HP Mini 311 is a great start.

Agreed, but for those of us who have the U100 or other netbooks lacking the capability, this certainly presents a good option. I'll admit I don't really plan on bringing a Blu-Ray player with me to use with a netbook, but it's certainly nice to know that I can make ISOs from my library and play them at 30,000 feet without dragging out the giant notebook.

I'll be more than happy to show it off at EPIC
10 Feb 2010 ~ 10:56pm GHoosdum My goal in a netbook isn't just 1080p playback, but also the ability to run some light gaming. For only a few dollars more than the price of the well-equipped HP Mini 311, I've had my eye on the nice Asus Eee PC 1201N. In addition to the ION chipset, it has the dual-core Atom CPU.
10 Feb 2010 ~ 11:08pm Thrax The 1201N is definitely nice, but I'm not sure the $100 price premium is worth it.
11 Feb 2010 ~ 1:33pm ardichoke Yeah... sacrifice WiFi for HD playback? When did people start expecting their netbook to do everything a full sized notebook does? I thought the whole point of the netbook market was inexpensive, portable computers to get your basic daily tasks done on (email, browsing, maybe some word processing). If you want something to be a media player, why would you ever tether yourself to a netbook with a 10, 11 or 12 inch screen?
11 Feb 2010 ~ 1:36pm mertesn

ardichoke wrote:

Yeah... sacrifice WiFi for HD playback? When did people start expecting their netbook to do everything a full sized notebook does? I thought the whole point of the netbook market was inexpensive, portable computers to get your basic daily tasks done on (email, browsing, maybe some word processing). If you want something to be a media player, why would you ever tether yourself to a netbook with a 10, 11 or 12 inch screen?

The only WiFi that was sacrificed was the internal module. It is trivial to add a USB adapter. In fact, the USB module works better than the internal did.
11 Feb 2010 ~ 11:06pm ardichoke That's well and good... I still say my other point stands though. Netbooks were never supposed to be hardcore media platforms. Anyone who has the smarts to know about and install one of these cards either A) didn't buy a netbook for HD playback or B) bought an ION platform netbook. It's a neat concept, but one that seems to be doomed if you ask me. Now if they could release a similar thing in a USB stick form, that would excite me, because I could just have it in my bag and if, for some reason, I wanted to watch some HD content I could plug it in. For me, and all the other people I know that own netbooks though, wireless gets used a lot more than HD video playback. Having to deal with a USB wireless card constantly is annoying and since they get used almost all the time the thing is running, you're much more likely to break an external wifi stick as opposed to something that you only have plugged in once and a while when you need it.
11 Feb 2010 ~ 11:11pm Thrax Realistically speaking, these Broadcom cards were designed to ship in OEM configurations with Pine Trail netbooks. You can purchase them individually, but that's not really the point.
11 Feb 2010 ~ 11:12pm ardichoke Well, that's an entirely different concept than what was presented in this article.
11 Feb 2010 ~ 11:13pm Thrax I'm aware. I'm just outlining the Broadcom card's OEM purposes. Even so, there are some netbooks with two Mini PCI Express slots.
11 Feb 2010 ~ 11:16pm ardichoke Got any specifics as to which ones Thrax? I don't recall seeing more than one mini-PCI(x) slot on any notebook I've ever taken apart. I've only ever torn into my MSI, my old Lenovo and a plethora of Dells though. Haven't had the chance to tear apart any netbooks yet.
11 Feb 2010 ~ 11:22pm Thrax There are a couple on this list: http://forum.pocketables.net/showthread.php?t=2425
11 Feb 2010 ~ 11:25pm ardichoke Oh herp-a-derp... of course... extra PCI-E slots for SSDs and for 3g cards. Why didn't I think of that. Hmm... this makes me want to crack my 1005HA open and see if I have an extra one.
12 Feb 2010 ~ 12:18am mertesn

ardichoke wrote:

That's well and good... I still say my other point stands though. Netbooks were never supposed to be hardcore media platforms.

They also weren't meant to run OS X, and yet that's the main reason I bought the U100.

Some of us just don't buy things to do what the manual says those things can do.
12 Feb 2010 ~ 1:46pm ardichoke Actually the U100 WAS made to run OSX.... they even marketed it on that along with most of their other Wind series.
12 Feb 2010 ~ 4:23pm mertesn

ardichoke wrote:

Actually the U100 WAS made to run OSX.... they even marketed it on that along with most of their other Wind series.

I'd like to see that claim backed up with data.
12 Feb 2010 ~ 4:25pm chrisWhite I've heard people having great success running them as OSX86 machines and I wouldn't be surprised if they made sure the hardware was good to go but I can't imagine them marketing it that way.
12 Feb 2010 ~ 4:35pm mertesn

chrisWhite wrote:

I've heard people having great success running them as OSX86 machines and I wouldn't be surprised if they made sure the hardware was good to go but I can't imagine them marketing it that way.

The U100 is especially good for use with OS X. There's an entire community dedicated to the task at http://www.insanelywind.com. But MSI would be opening themselves up to all kinds of legal trouble from Apple if they were to officially market their systems that way.
12 Feb 2010 ~ 4:35pm ardichoke Sorry, they viral marketed them that way. They may not have taken out billboards in times square but you can bet they chose their parts very carefully to be compatible with OSX and made sure that the right people knew it.
12 Feb 2010 ~ 4:46pm Thrax It's cool when people retract their statements and replace them with ones that cannot be proven, even empirically.
12 Feb 2010 ~ 4:51pm ardichoke The whole damn Wind line, including the nettops, run OSX. You're telling me that's just a coincidence?
12 Feb 2010 ~ 4:59pm Thrax The whole damn Wind line uses the most common, inexpensive ASICs on earth. You'd have to be a moron to purchase something more esoteric and expensive given the volume and margins on netbooks.
12 Feb 2010 ~ 5:08pm mertesn

ardichoke wrote:

The whole damn Wind line, including the nettops, run OSX. You're telling me that's just a coincidence?

Here is proof that it may very well be a coincidence:
The Mac Mini at one time ran on an Intel 945 chipset with a 32-bit Core Solo processor and Intel GMA950 integrated graphics. The architecture of the U100 netbooks (and many other models and brands) was identical save for the processor. So naturally it was a moderately trivial task to get OS X to run on those platforms. Did the manufacturers plan it that way? Doubt it. That was Intel's decision.

(Begin unprovable speculation) If Apple thought Intel did this specifically to create a "Hackintosh market" I'd be willing to bet we'd have seen either AMD powered Apple systems or a gigantor lawsuit by now.

So yes, it probably was a coincidence. I can't prove it either way.

Again, your original claim:

ardichoke wrote:

Actually the U100 WAS made to run OSX.... they even marketed it on that along with most of their other Wind series.

I'm still waiting for your concrete proof.
Now back up your claim Ardi.
13 Feb 2010 ~ 4:18am ardichoke Sorry, I went over the line with my last response.

Of course I can't back up the OSX comment, if I could Apple would actually be suing MSI no doubt. If the Wind series fell under Thrax's "coincidence" argument though, then half the netbooks and nettops on the market would also run OSX just as easily. Are you telling me it's a coincidence that of all the netbooks and nettops out there, only the Wind series is OSX friendly? I call bullshit on that. MAYBE the original was a coincidence, after that though I'd posit they purposely stuck with the hackintosh hardware in order to push a few more units to people that wanted to run OSX but didn't want to pay the Apple premium. Not a bad decision if you ask me.

Regardless of the above, that whole argument is a tangent. It seems to me that you just don't like me questioning your article or your conclusions. The Broadcom card may be a nice little addition to a netbook out of the box as Thrax said. It's stupid to add it to an existing one because you're adding functionality that wasn't intended for netbooks at the expense of essential functionality, namely wireless internet. Your article didn't even take into account the cost of a decent USB wifi card, which will be necessary when you remove the existing wireless card to add this HD co-processor. This card is a stupid purchase for any netbook that doesn't either have an unused mini PCI-E slot or for anyone that doesn't have a spare USB wireless card laying around and doesn't mind having some stick or dongle hanging off their netbook all the time. I'm not questioning that it's a neat piece of tech, just that it should be an Icrontic recommendation. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone that bought a netbook for its intended purpose, a small, light machine to access the Internet with. Not a media platform.
13 Feb 2010 ~ 10:55am mertesn

ardichoke wrote:

Sorry, I went over the line with my last response.

No problem.

ardichoke wrote:

Of course I can't back up the OSX comment, if I could Apple would actually be suing MSI no doubt. If the Wind series fell under Thrax's "coincidence" argument though, then half the netbooks and nettops on the market would also run OSX just as easily. Are you telling me it's a coincidence that of all the netbooks and nettops out there, only the Wind series is OSX friendly? I call bullshit on that. MAYBE the original was a coincidence, after that though I'd posit they purposely stuck with the hackintosh hardware in order to push a few more units to people that wanted to run OSX but didn't want to pay the Apple premium. Not a bad decision if you ask me.

I believe the Asus Eee PC line were among the first to get the OS X treatment. Regardless, the Wind series isn't the only line that's compatible. It's just the most popular. The Dell Mini 9 is apparently quite compatible as well. I would actually say that easily half the netbooks out there run OS X.

ardichoke wrote:

Regardless of the above, that whole argument is a tangent. It seems to me that you just don't like me questioning your article or your conclusions. The Broadcom card may be a nice little addition to a netbook out of the box as Thrax said. It's stupid to add it to an existing one because you're adding functionality that wasn't intended for netbooks at the expense of essential functionality, namely wireless internet.

I don't have a problem with anyone questioning my article or its conclusions (this conversation will probably end up rounding out the article nicely), but your argument holds a bit of a problem: throughout modern PC history, probably 90% of the improvements made to computers started as added functionality that wasn't in the original box at the time of purchase. Graphics adapters, sound cards, mice, TV tuners, and optical drives - were these stupid because they added functionality that wasn't intended for the original PCs? Yet they are all now considered essential components (TV tuner being the exception). The netbook is no different here. We are now seeing additional capability built in that came from a desire to do more with these small systems.

I didn't sacrifice ANY functionality to add in the Broadcom card, and I can't express how strongly I disagree with your argument that it's stupid to add it into the Wind. The system lacks certain media capabilities and the card fills that gap. Were netbooks intended to be HD media players? No, but now it's a viable option for those of us without ION systems. Just like a GPU can turn a $300 cheapo special PC into an entry-level gaming system.

ardichoke wrote:

Your article didn't even take into account the cost of a decent USB wifi card, which will be necessary when you remove the existing wireless card to add this HD co-processor. This card is a stupid purchase for any netbook that doesn't either have an unused mini PCI-E slot or for anyone that doesn't have a spare USB wireless card laying around and doesn't mind having some stick or dongle hanging off their netbook all the time. I'm not questioning that it's a neat piece of tech, just that it should be an Icrontic recommendation. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone that bought a netbook for its intended purpose, a small, light machine to access the Internet with. Not a media platform.

As for not listing a price for the USB WiFi, I chose not to because I felt it to be outside the scope of the article although it was certainly mentioned as a caveat. It was probably an incorrect decision which is easily fixed. For the record, I paid $30 for this adapter, and it doesn't "hang off" the system. I happen to have a 9 cell battery (again, an aftermarket product because the 3-cell was the only thing available at purchase time) which raises the back end about 1.5" above the front. It's a perfect spot to secure the WiFi dongle. Doesn't get in the way of anything and as previously stated, the USB WiFi works better than the internal adapter did.

Your argument that it was a 'stupid' purchase is invalid for me. I desired a certain function that my existing equipment lacked, found a workable solution, and implemented it. That capability wasn't around at the time of purchase, and $60 in upgrades was certainly less than purchasing a $400 - 500 netbook that still couldn't do everything I wanted it to, namely run OS X. The HP Mini 311 is moving toward running it, but still has a long way to go before it's useful in that role. If I found a 1280x720 display that would fit in the LCD housing on my Wind you could be sure that I'd have it installed in a heartbeat. If its display quality was as good or better than the original, I'd also recommend it in an article to anyone that wanted a better display in their netbook. If the quality wasn't as good, I would mention that too. This is why I reviewed the Broadcom card, and I stand by the article, its recommendation, and the Stamp of Approval. If you don't want that capability in your netbook, then you weren't my target audience.
14 Feb 2010 ~ 8:23am Enverex

GHoosdum wrote:

My goal in a netbook isn't just 1080p playback, but also the ability to run some light gaming. For only a few dollars more than the price of the well-equipped HP Mini 311, I've had my eye on the nice Asus Eee PC 1201N. In addition to the ION chipset, it has the dual-core Atom CPU.

I was looking into the ION machines but I've got 2 issues with them. At 12" you may as well get a laptop rather than a Netbook because at that size it IS a laptop (I see anything below 11" as a Netbook) also the battery life isn't very good which kinda defeats the point of a Netbook.

You can get CULV laptops with 11.6" screens, better battery life and considering more power at that size so (other than the price difference) it seems like the 12" Netbook category has no real use, they are just weak Laptops.

I'm hoping the ION2 platform rectifies that and makes the performance/battery setup something worth considering.
14 Feb 2010 ~ 11:45am GHoosdum You're right about that, in fact I've even seen a few CULV 11" laptops in the same price range as the ION netbooks, but I've yet to find a CULV laptop in the smaller size range with anything better than a 4500MHD graphics processor.
21 Nov 2011 ~ 2:37pm Federico Hi do you know if I can swap in my Dell Inspiron 9300 the WIFI PCI-MINI card for they BCM70015? PCI-E MINI card?
Federico