Floppyhead – Digital Media and Streaming

Cheap media center PCs capable are needed to drive mainstream adoption. Broadcom has announced new media PC solutions that enable playback of high definition (HD) video content for low end computer systems. Broadcom hardware will reduce the CPU utilization required to playback HD-DVD and Blu-ray movies. From the press release:

By lowering CPU utilization, and integrating seamlessly into Microsoft Windows Vista™ and Windows® XP environments, Broadcom’s media PC solutions enable mainstream PCs featuring integrated graphics to play back high definition content from either a Blu-ray Disc™ or HD DVD, as well as from HD downloaded or broadcast content. The new Broadcom® media PC solutions are available in three add-in card formats (including desktop PCI Express®, PCI Express mini-card or ExpressCard™ 34), and as a chipset solution for PC motherboard applications.

The chipset solution for PC motherboards sound interesting and could lead to not only small form factor media centers but also cheaper prices. Here are more details on this chipset:

The BCM70010/BCM70012 chipset introduces the advantages of the next-generation high-definition H.264 and VC-1 video compression algorithms to PC applications such as the playback of Blu-ray and HD DVD disks. The chipset is a single stream HD AVC/VC-1/MPEG-2 decoder solution capable of full HD real-time decoding. The high performance and low power consumption of the solution allow reduced CPU utilization and support for mobile platform designs.

All of the Broadcom hardware supports HDCP and are available today to OEMs for prices around $40, much cheaper than an NVidia. Expect laptops to be available soon using this technology.