Turbo.264
from AntBlog701

Turbo.264

I don't usually miss out important Mac hardware releases, but I miss out the Turbo.264, Elgato released on 16th May. Don't ask me why.

I bought Elgato Turbo.264 from Academy Store with my Pro Card discount. It works as advertised. It's a hardware encoder that can create high quality H.264 format for iPod, Apple TV and Sony PSP.

Elgato Turbo.264 accelerates the H.264 encoding (exporting to H.264) and offloads the system resources. As many of us who encode video into H.264 format, we all know that H.264 is a great codec, but takes ages to encode it. With the help of hardware encoding, the CPU can be free for other tasks.

Elgato Turbo.264 can take any video format that QuickTime understands, including codecs supplied by third-party such as Flip4Mac WMV Component, as well as MPEG Program Stream/System Stream (including unencrypted DVD/HD DVD content).

There are four output persets: Apple TV Video, iPod (Best) Video, iPod (Smallest) Video, and Sony PSP Video.

Elgato Turbo.264 integrates with EyeTV, of course.

I use Elgato EyeTV Diversity to record quite a few TV shows. I hope this new device can help me speed up H.264 encoding.

Elgato Turbo.264 (home page)
H.264 and other QuickTime codec comparison - MacCentre701
Turbo.264 – Turbocharge your iPod and Apple TV Exports (Elgato Press Release)

Related blog entires:
EyeTV Diversity (6 Feb 2007)
new iMac and EyeTV 2.3.2 (21 October 2006)
Elgato EyeTV for DTT (17 August 2006)