Broadcom intros Crystal HD media accelerator for Pine Trail netbooks

Broadcom has announced the BCM70015 Crystal HD video processor for OEMs designing netbooks using the next-generation Intel Atom Pine Trail platform. The chip is designed for HD video playback on netbooks.

The single-chip HD video decoder can provide video playback of a number of different codecs including H.264/AVC, MPEG-2, VC-1, WMV9, MPEG-4, DivX, Xvid and AVS. It also provides support for Adobe Flash Player (v10.1) and Windows Media Player (v12).

Whilst a genuine alternative to Nvidia’s ION chipset, it is worth noting that Broadcom’s solution is only applicable for video and not games (unlike ION). The BCM70015 will be available in mini PCI-E format, as well as having the motherboard option.