Flash 10.1 Release Candidate released 4/6/10

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flas ... enotes.pdf

I guess a release candidate is further along the road than the recent Beta 3 release.

Support on GMA 500 chipsets with Win7, at least in full-screen mode, is limited to Win7 versions running the Aero Theme (what the heck - guess those of us with only Win7 Starter edition are out of luck).

Broadcom BCM70012 chipsets are now supported - previously the '15's worked but '12's were buggy.

Broadcom has a new driver version out, 3.3.0. It predates this Flash Release Candidate by a couple of weeks.
http://www.broadcom.com/support/crystal_hd/

edit - a couple of hours later:

On my Dell Inspirion 1010 - a z530 machine with 1gb - the Release Candidate does NOT improve video viewing in the browser box at all, neither in 360p or 480p. I am hopeful that when I get home my Broadcom '12 machines will do better. I DO have Win7 Home Premium on my Acer Aspire ao751h so we'll see if an "Aero's Theme" Win7 install benefits from the Release Candidate at all. Note that the 751 has the slower z520 processor, although it does come with a full 2gb of RAM.

 

The Release Candidate did not help my z520/z530 or Broadcom Crystal issues at all.

Two days ago, though, I put a higher rez monitor on my desktop computer and coincidentally (or as a result) Hulu started stuttering, despite the desktop being fairly new and dual core. So I upgraded from Flash 10 to 10.1 and the picture ran fine again. BUT I noticed that Adobe is now up to Release Candidate 2, so you may want to upgrade again.

Broadcom hasn't upgraded its Crystal driver since 3.3.0.

As always, make sure you have the latest video card driver.

Amazon now has an Asus available for pre-order for $399 with the Broadcom, 13xx X 7xx rez (on 10.1" screen). In addition to the Crystal card you get a 250 gb hd. Price should drop to $379 if past history is any predictor, within a few weeks or a month or two of introduction. Still not a bad price. Too bad it still only has 1g of RAM - maybe that's a Win7 Starter/netbook licensing fee restriction? Ugh, I'm tired of pulling and sidelining 1gb modules to replace them with 2gb. Still, if it would run Hulu on 1 gb, I wouldn't mind too much...I'm more about good performance from one key app (Hulu) than mult-tasking.

Or we can all wait for the N470 (?) a promised dual core Atom netbook chip, with only slightly higher current draw than a single core....