Convert your movies, TV shows or video clips to Apple TV or iPod format with ease thanks to the Elgato Turbo.264.
Summary
Thesedays, almost every Mac user in the world has some sort of collection ofvideos on his or her computer — home movies, TV shows, short clips, andeven professionally produced videos. Watching those movies on thecomputer is easy; however, converting them to iPod or Apple TVformat can be frustrating and terribly time consuming, especially forpeople with older G4 and G5 Macs. Elgato comes to the rescue with theTurbo.264 USB-based video encoder. Claiming to boost the speed of videoconversions by upward of 1,200 percent, Elgato makes a pretty strongargument for buying their $99 USD product. We gave the Turbo.264 athorough test to see if it lives up to the hype. Read on to see how itfared and if it’s something you should buy.
Features & Design
TheElgato Turbo.264 is a small USB device (about the size of a Zippolighter) that acts as a video conversion co-processor for Maccomputers: G4, G5, and the new Intel lineup. Given its size, theTurbo.264 is extremely lightweight and easily fits in a pocket. Theelegant matte-black finish complements black MacBooks, though it looksequally high-tech with any other Mac laptop or desktop system.
TheTurbo.264 is specifically designed to work with Intel and PPC Maccomputers, as long as they have at least one USB 2.0 port available.Because the Turbo.264 uses USB 2.0 as its data pipe, conversion speedsare limited to available USB 2.0 resources. And while USB 2.0 has amaximum (theoretical/potential) data rate of 480mbps (roughly 60MB/s),some Mac users will experience slower data rates, closer to 15–20MB/s.Even with this potential limitation due to specific systemconfiguration, the data rate is really quite sufficient for moderateand heavy video conversion tasks.
Assistive Device
Elgato makes it very clear that the Turbo.264 is a crutch device; the slower your system, the more you need the Turbo.264.Folks with G4 systems will benefit the most, followed by G5 users, thenIntel. The with/without comparisons on G4 and G5 systems are stunning—conversion rates are upwards of 1,200 percent faster using theTurbo.264. If you believe in the "time is money" theory, the Turbo.264will probably pay for itself in one or two G4/G5 conversions. As forIntel Mac users, the Turbo.264 is certainly helpful and will either a)speed up your video conversions, or b) free up your processor for otherconcurrent applications. No matter how you look at it, the Turbo.264 isa practical and beneficial assistive device.
The Elgato Turbo.264 & MacBook Pro
Conclusion
Ifyou’re into video editing, or if you want to convert movies and avifiles to Apple TV and iPod-friendly formats, the Elgato Turbo.264 isbound to be a great assistive device. If you have an older Mac computerand you’ve been considering an expensive upgrade to a new Intel systemsolely for video conversion projects, the Turbo.264 is definitely adevice you’ll want to check out. It could save you hundreds of dollarsin upgrade costs, and depending on your system configuration, theTurbo.264 could literally save you hundreds or thousands ofvideo-conversion hours per year. At only $99 USD retail, the Turbo.264is a fantastic assistive device.
Pros:
• Small USB device
• Massive assistance to slower systems
• Frees up main CPU
• Integrates with QuickTime Pro, Final Cut, and iMovie
• Easy batch conversions
Cons:
• Can’t convert DVDs directly
• No custom settings
• No subtitles from DVDs
Setup & Use
Gettingthe Turbo.264 set up on your Mac computer is quite easy. Pop the CD inand drag the Turbo.264 app into your Applications folder. The whole appis only about 9.8MB, so it takes up very little room on your harddrive. My entire installation took 12 seconds, start to finish.
Oncethe Turbo.264 app is installed, plug in the Turbo.264 USB device intoyour Mac. Don’t expect the Turbo.264 to show up as a drive — it’s avideo encoder, not a flash card.
Open the Turbo.264 application,and in 1–2 seconds, it’ll be ready to encode your video files. You canquickly drag and drop any number of video files into the Turbo.264 appwindow, and it’ll prep each for batch conversion. Select the desiredoutput file type (iPod High Quality, iPod Standard, Sony PSP, or AppleTV) and click "start." You’ll see the progress indicators keeping youinformed of the conversion progress, much like old-school analogtripometers in a car. As the conversion nears completion, the countdownswitches from minutes to seconds. When done, the app signals successfulconversion with an upbeat "ding!"
Drag and Drop your Files Here
Ifyou use Final Cut (Pro or Express), iMovie, or QuickTime Pro, you canexport video files from these apps with the assistance of the Turbo.264hardware. In any of those apps, select Export, then click the drop-downmenu that gives you file format options. You’ll see the newly addedTurbo.264-assisted options for iPod, PSP, and Apple TV [e.g. Movie toApple TV (Elgato Turbo.264)]. Select the desired format, and away yougo — the Turbo.264 will help your app of choice convert the video.
Test Conversions
Iran several conversions to compare against Elgato’s conversion stats.The test file was an avi file, 39 minutes, 52 seconds, 350.5MB.
MacBook Pro 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo
Turbo.264 to iPod High – 17m 35s, 333.9MB file, 60fps average
Turbo.264 to iPod Standard – 7m 48s, 197.1MB file, 120fps average
Turbo.264 to Sony PSP – 11m 05s, 231.5MB file, 117fps average
Turbo.264 to Apple TV – 17m 49s, 397MB file, 50fps average
Turbo.264 assist QTPro to Apple TV – 17m 36s, 397MB file
QTPro (no assist) to Apple TV – 58m 36s, 486.1MB file (yikes!)
VisualHub to Apple TV – 13m 50s, 159.9MB file
Other sample conversions on slower machines are as follows: one-hour DV video converted to Apple TV format.
1.25GHz G4 iMac without Turbo.264 – 23h 06m
1.25GHz G4 iMac with Turbo.264 – 1h 50m
1.8GHz G5 PowerMac without Turbo.264 – 9h 10m
1.8GHz G5 PowerMac with Turbo.264 – 1h 30m
2GHz MacBook C2D without Turbo.264 – 4h 21m
2GHz MacBook C2D with Turbo.264 – 1h 06m
As you can see, the slower the computer, the greater support Turbo.264 gives.
H.264 to H.264 Output Quality
Iconverted a 1.3GB Final Cut video to Apple TV format using theTurbo.264. The 1.3GB file was in .mov format, 640 x 480, and encoded asInteger (Little Endian), H.264. The original file had flawless quality.The Turbo.264 converted it to Apple TV 640 x 480 at about 20fps, whichis two-thirds "real-time" encoding speed. The output file was only170MB, and the quality was exceptional. I was prepared to see obviouspixellation but was pleasantly deprived of that letdown.
Converting video for the Apple TV
HandBrake
Because HandBrakeis a stand-alone application that does not directly integrate with OSX’s video encoding and decoding software (QuickTime API) likeQuickTime, Final Cut Pro, and iMovie do, the Turbo.264 will not show upas an export option in HandBrake. If you’re ripping your home DVDcollection to H.264, it’s best to stick with HandBrake until Elgatoadds a full-featured DVD conversion feature. If you really must convertDVD using the Turbo.264, know that it’s limited to convertingunencrypted VIDEO-TS folders and will render H.264 files from each VOBfile. The Turbo.264 will not stitch them together to produce afull-length video. Again, with the encryption issue, the likelihood isthat almost no commercial DVDs will allow direct decoding viaTurbo.264. A program like MacTheRipper could strip the encryption inmost cases, but a) it brings up obvious ethical questions and b)HandBrake cuts out the middle man by converting directly from a DVDdisc to an H.264 video file.
Decoding
Alas,the Turbo.264 is not a decoder. If your system is so slow that itcannot easily handle playing H.264 video files, the Turbo.264 will nothelp improve playback. It’ll certainly help encode those videos inshort order, but assistive playback is not on the menu.
Custom Settings?
Sorry.No custom settings for the Turbo.264 like in HandBrake. The Turbo.264is optimized for very specific (and popular) conversions, and it doesso quite well. Most users will likely not need personalized options ifthey’re using the Turbo.264. The default options render really nicevideo, perfect for the target devices. But for those users who like totweak settings to get very specific results (custom video resolutions,etc.), the default-only options could sour the deal.
Subtitles
Quelle dommage! No subtitles from DVDs unless the subtitles were previously included on-screen in an avi/mp4 ripped DVD.
HD Conversions?
TheTurbo.264 is limited to maximum output resolutions of 800 x 600 at30fps. That’s not HD quality, so anyone needing true HD content willneed to wait until Elgato comes out with a second-generation Turbo.264that can handle HD, or they can use existing software conversion tools.The 800 x 600 resolution is sufficient for standard-def DVD videos.
Laptop Battery Life
Giventhe fact that the Turbo.264 acts as a sort of slave processor dedicatedto video conversions, your main processor is freed from that gruelingactivity. With CPU activity dramatically reduced, battery life onlaptops will benefit. You won’t get extra hours of uptime, but what youdo gain will certainly be appreciated.
Low Processor Hit
Whilerunning a handful of avi conversions to Apple TV and iPod formats,total CPU usage stayed right around 25 percent, 3–6 percent of whichwas already taken by OS X and other apps. Real memory used was 55MB,and virtual memory was 497MB. Page ins/outs stayed n/0 the entire time— more than 10 conversions. Why? As mentioned above, the Turbo.264 actsas a co-processor for video conversions. Of course, your main CPU isstill used a bit, but not nearly as much as it would be if videoconversions were done directly and unassisted from QT, FCP, etc., whichcan push upwards of 80 percent CPU usage.
