The Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator is 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. A handful of netbooks on the market today ship with the card pre-installed, and hackers have been picking up cheap Broadcom cards from eBay for ages and installing them in a wide range of netbooks.
But the prices of those eBay cards shot up a while back after Broadcom introduces its second generation video accelerator and supplies of the original model became scare.
Now there’s another option. Habey is selling its HB-VD904 for $49.99 through Amazon
. This card is based on the Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator, and can decode high definition AVC, VC-1, MPEG-2, WMV, and H.264 video.
Tjhe HB-VD904 is a PCIe mini card which can fit in many existing netbooks and other devices. Officially Habey is targeting system integrators, but if you’re not afraid of opening up the case to your netbook, this might be a way to improve the video capabilities of your Intel Atom powered mini-laptop.
