Netbook Review UK

One drawback of netbooks often cited is that high definition video playback can be slow, or impossible.  It’s not really a problem if you have a dedicated grahipcs card like Nvidia Ion, but if you are stuck with integrated Intel graphics, you can often add a Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator if you have an available PCIe slot.  The card servers as a media coprocessor that adds support for HD video playback on computers with slow processors and graphics cards that normally wouldn’t be able to handle high definition video.

Some netbooks are sold with the cards pre-installed, but others have bought the card from eBay and other sources and upgraded their netbooks themselves.  Unfortunately Broadcom came out with a second generation of the card, and the original became scare.

But now, Habey is selling its HB-VD904 for $49.99 through Amazon in the States.  The card is virtually the same as the  Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator that it’s based on, and can decode high definition AVC, VC-1, MPEG-2, WMV, and H.264 video.  So, let the DIY upgrades continue.   Let’s hope a UK distributor gets some of these soon as well.