Buying
a computer with integrated graphics can save you money. However, when it comes to things like playing Blu-ray or HD DVD movies, they just
don't have the horsepower. To give these computers the performance boost they need, Albatron has released a Blue Ray Decoder Card (Yes,
they spell it "Blue"). By utilizing NVIDIA's Geforce 8500GT GPU, this low-profile VGA card can reduce CPU utilization by 60% during
high-def video playback.
Albatron has
recently announced the exciting new "Blue Ray Decoder Card" giving mainstream users a great alternative to Integrated Graphics. This
low-profile VGA card can provide even the most basic systems with High Definition video playback including Blu-ray and HD-DVD. This card
also supports DirectX 10, boosting 3D graphics performance for the Windows VistaTM operating system...
...The technology behind
this high performance, high definition video playback is NVIDIA's PureVideo HD technology, embedded into the NVIDIA Geforce 8500GT GPU.
One of the most practical aspects of this technology is that it focuses video playback mostly on the GPU, leaving your CPU to do other
things. In fact, systems using Core 2 Duo processors with PureVideo HD usage has consistently shown CPU utilization under 20% during high
definition video playback which also demonstrates up to a 60% reduction in CPU impact when using PureVideo HD versus using other
technologies. This card also supports H.264, VC-1 and MPEG-2 encoding/compression formats used to record data on both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray
disks.
In reality, Albatron's Blue Ray Decoder Card is nothing more than a low-profile version of the 8500GT-256 graphics card.
No word yet on price or availability. As we find out more, we'll let you know. In the mean time, Albatron's entire press release can be
found here.
