Flash 10.1 + Broadcom Crystal HD

[WD-40]

So the 311 forum has been quick to notice that a beta for Adobe Flash Player 10.1 is out.
(see: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=2812 and viewtopic.php?f=62&t=2819)

The beta plugins can be downloaded at:
http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html

Supposedly this is the big update that will provide hardware acceleration support for Flash... Has anyone had a chance to test this with the 110's Broadcom Crystal HD decoder card yet?

[neonkoala]

Yep, the new update works well with the Broadcom card. Tested it with some 720p trailers on Youtube, smooth playback. Also on Windows 7 for the record.

[newday2a]

Arghhhhh !!!

I bought and fitted the Broadcom Crystal HD card, and got Arcsoft to play a couple of 1080p mov files beautifully, but this new release from ADOBE seems to have had no effect at all on my browser and the videos crawl along or max out my processor, which leads me to think it's not really using the card after all.

Am I missing something? Some setting that I haven't touched? I've got the latest 945 graphics drivers from Intel, and the Broadcom drivers from the HP site, but still no use.

Can anyone help out there?

[neonkoala]

What browser are you using? If it's internet explorer you need the ActiveX download for the other browsers you'll need the standard plugin.

[WD-40]

So I uninstalled Flash 10.0, restarted to be safe, and installed the 10.1 beta only to find that video playback is worse! SD playback now only plays a few frames of video and then the video stops updating while the sound continues, and HD playback never starts. It just acts like it is buffering forever.

Under 10.0, the SD playback was fine and the HD was jerky but at least displayed a frame every once in a while...

I'm going to try uninstalling/reinstalling... but beyond that I have no idea what could be wrong.

[WD-40]

It turns out that it was a driver issue.

The latest Broadcom driver from the HP support section is version 2.33.0.0, dated 05-2009. When installed, the driver shows in the device manager as version 2.33.0.0 with a date of 1/14/2009.

However, you can go to http://www.broadcom.com/support/crystal_hd/, and they have a download for driver version "2.7.4651". After installation, device manager will report the decoder's version number as 2.36.0.0 with a date of 8/10/2009.

After updating the driver, I can now play both SD and HD flash videos. I get a crash if I change from SD->HD in YouTube while a video is playing, but otherwise it seems to be working fine.

[ravic]

Thanks WD-40, I was experiencing the same issue. I will try to get the latest driver.

[frychiko]

Anyone try Flash 10.1 beta 2 with the Broadcom card?

I never tested beta 1 on the HP Mini 110, but I still get choppy HD playback even with the latest Broadcom HD card drivers as opposed to HP's own drivers.

[soup006]

Does flash 10.1 and the broadcom card help regular flash programs unrelated to 720p/1080 videos? For instance, some websites that use a lot of flash are slow to load on my mini as well as some flash based games.

[WD-40]

Anyone try Flash 10.1 beta 2 with the Broadcom card?

I haven't tried it yet... I'm a bit hesitant to change anything, since beta 1 is working fine for me...

frychiko, if 10.1 beta 2 isn't working for you, I wonder if it would be worth it to try 10.1 beta 1?

[WD-40]

Does flash 10.1 and the broadcom card help regular flash programs unrelated to 720p/1080 videos? For instance, some websites that use a lot of flash are slow to load on my mini as well as some flash based games.

Nope, the broadcom card is only for accelerating video content.

[WD-40]

By the way, here are the release notes for Beta 2:
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flas ... enotes.pdf

The biggest changes (relevant to us) that I can see since Beta 1 are the fixes for blocky fullscreen video, and the stall when seeking backwards in a video.