Please educate me on: T61 + Azure Wave HD decoder card

[ajkula66]

Long story short, by generosity of a fellow forum member I've come into the possession of Azure Wave HD card (1/2 mini-PCI-e format) which I believe uses a Broadcom chip. Here are the questions that I have:

a) Will this work in *every* T61 or only in the ones that were originally WWAN-enabled?

b) What does the card actually do - not necessarily on the technology level - and what is it useful for?

Thanks in advance for any and all wisdom that you can share.

[axur-delmeria]

a) It will work on any T61 that has a mini PCIe slot for the Turbo Memory card. Remove the useless Turbo Memory card, then pop in the HD decoder card. It will also work on the WLAN mini-PCIe slot.

b) It's a specialized decoder chip for videos encoded in H.264, VC-1, WMV9 and MPEG-2. This allows you to watch Full HD (1920x1080) videos without needing a very fast CPU.
It's a useful upgrade for Intel-based T61s, as the GMA X3100 graphics doesn't have acceleration for any of those formats.
Not that useful for nVidia-equipped models, as the Quadro NVS 140 is based on the G86 core which has full H.264 decoding and partial VC-1 decoding support. The FX 570M has similar features IIRC.

[ajkula66]

Many a thanks for the heads up, axur-delmeria. I guess I'll open up a couple of machines tomorrow to verify if the slot is present - and if so - how well they play with the card...

[Dekks]

Many a thanks for the heads up, axur-delmeria. I guess I'll open up a couple of machines tomorrow to verify if the slot is present - and if so - how well they play with the card...

TBH its not really worth the effort - under linux the support is depreciated as no one would act as maintainer & under windows while there are drivers only a few video players have real support for it any more and its quite complex to set up the ones that do. VLC says it does but the effect was negligible while using HPC- HC you can at least see the card is active once you get the setup right.

I used it on a 2Ghz X61 and saw very little reduction in CPU usage under vista eventually binning it for a turbo memory card.

[Shredder11]

In my Z61p I removed my WiFi card and installed the video one in there, as it did not work in my WWAN slot and I do not have a Turbo Memory socket that I know of. For WiFi I just use a USB mini dongle in the USB port at the rear.

[axur-delmeria]

In my Z61p I removed my WiFi card and installed the video one in there, as it did not work in my WWAN slot and I do not have a Turbo Memory socket that I know of. For WiFi I just use a USB mini dongle in the USB port at the rear.

The Z61 is like the T60 and X60-- the WWAN slot is USB only, and does not have any PCI Express pins connected.

[Shredder11]

Yes the Z61p is the same as the T60 series, and perhaps the next T61 series is different with regard to the WWAN slot? I've had excellent results with playing 1080p 50fps video, using the Media Player Classic from the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack.

[axur-delmeria]

Yes the Z61p is the same as the T60 series, and perhaps the next T61 series is different with regard to the WWAN slot?

Definitely different. The WWAN slot of the T61 (and X61) is designed to accommodate the Turbo Memory card, which is a PCIe device. Checking the schematics (which can be found online with a bit of google-fu) confirms the presence of PCIe signals on the WWAN slot.

[Dekks]

Definitely different. The WWAN slot of the T61 (and X61) is designed to accommodate the Turbo Memory card, which is a PCIe device. Checking the schematics (which can be found online with a bit of google-fu) confirms the presence of PCIe signals on the WWAN slot.

The X200 tablet i'm looking at now has 3 slots WLAN,WWAN with antenna and the spare half height for the Turbo card. It's interesting that 1080p video worked so well. Pity i didn't test it any further than 720p.

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

I've had excellent results with playing 1080p 50fps video, using the Media Player Classic from the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack.

Even without the Crystal HD card, I've never run into any problems with 1080p movies using VLC on my Z61t (Intel graphics). I would think a Z61p or any T61 type system would be even better. I do get a bit of jitter trying to play 1080p Youtube videos and I think the Crystal HD card would resolve that, but it hardly seems worth it.

[Shredder11]

You need to try 50fps video to discover it will not play it without additional hardware assistance from the Azure / Broadcom video card. The result was more like one frame every few seconds! However if you are playing 1080p at 25fps it will manage that fine, although anything with fast panning camera work wiill be very jerky. The framerate is the key here not the resolution. I'm not sure which onboard video chip your Z61t has, but mine has the AMD FireGL Mobility v5200 256MB.

[axur-delmeria]

@Dekks
The X200 series has H.264 and VC-1 acceleration courtesy of the GMA X4500MHD IIRC. Not much sense in using CrystalHD there, unless you've experienced problems with the X4500MHD's acceleration support (software compatibility, decoding errors, etc.)