When Intel launched its Pine Trail platform earlier this week, we were somewhat disappointed with the performance of the Atom processor's with built-in GPU, mainly the lack of support for playback of HD video. Intel promised that this would be solved by third party manufacturers and Broadcom has now emerged as Catcher in the Rye with its Crystal HD circuit.

Crystal HD is based on Broadcom BCM70015 chip, and will help the Atom-based netbooks to not only play the various HD formats (H.264 and VC-1) but also help when you play other video formats like DivX, Xvid and MPEG-2.

Broadcom Crystal HD circuit seems to be very effective for high definition playback, which of course is very positive. But Intel's fierce 2-chip solution was just again a 3-chip solution, which we probably would rather see an extra graphics chip under the hood than a dedicated media processor.

What price premium Broadcom Crystal HD chip will learn to be the decisive factor in the end.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkhIZqOePps"]YouTube- Broadcom Crystal HD Solution[/ame]