Filed under: Video
Elgato Turbo.264 Graphics Accelerator: First Look
A few months ago, TUAW posted about the new turbo.264 USB h.264 encoder from Elgato. Recently, I've had the opportunity to test out the t.264 and metaphorically kick its tires. Here's a quick summary of what I found.
What is it? The turbo.264 is a graphics co-processor in the form of a USB dongle. You connect it to a spare USB port and use it to speed up video conversions to h.264 files. The t.264 produces h.264 video optimized for iPod, Apple TV and PSP.
How fast is it? It's pretty fast. However, newer Macintoshes are also pretty fast. It took about 3 hours to rip my copy of Serenity using t.264. It took Handbrake about 5 hours on my 1.66 GHz Intel Core Duo Mac Mini with 1 GB memory. Keep in mind that QuickTime conversion to h.264 is notoriously slow. Handbrake and MPEG Streamclip provide much faster results but the off-loaded t.264 encoder beat them handily and freed up a large chunk of the main Mac's CPU cycles.
Will it make Handbrake faster? The accelerator only speeds up exports from QuickTime compatible applications. Handbrake doesn't export using QuickTime so it can't take advantage of t.264
What about other QuickTime-compatible apps? Any QuickTime application that lets you select one of the export components installed by the Turbo.264 software into /Library/QuickTime/Elgato Turbo.component can take advantage of the t.264 coprocessor. The components on offer are "Movie to Apple TV (Elgato Turbo.264)", "Movie to iPod (Elgato Turbo.264)", and "Movie to PSP (Elgato Turbo.264)". Further, the iPod export allows you to select from 640x480 and 320x240.
Can I use it to rip DVDs? Not directly. You'll need another program, like Mac the Ripper, to handle the removal of CSS, however you can use t.264 to convert unencrypted VOB files.
Can I use it with EyeTV? Yes. When installed, EyeTV automatically uses the turbo.264 unit to compress data rather than normal (and sloooow) QuickTime export.
I compress everything overnight anyway, so why use t.264? For some people with older machines, a 2-hour movie isn't an overnight task, it's a multi-day task. It's not a matter of whether everything finishes at 2 AM or 5 AM but rather will it get done while I'm away so I can use my computer when I get back?
Is it reliable? The first few software updates had some issues, but Elgato has been responsive to user problems and issuing bug fixes. The biggest problem that remains is the t.264's unwillingness to work on the same USB bus as some external USB hard drives. Elgato continues working on this problem.
How much does it cost? The t.264 costs $99.95.
Who should buy it? Anyone with an older, slower Mac (especially laptop users) might be able to take advantage of the t.264 speed advantage. It's particularly a good match for anyone who does a lot of video editing of short YouTube-like projects and wants to get from the edited product to the finish line as quickly as possible.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Gordon Werner said 4:26PM on 6-21-2007
Saying that it will not work with handbrake is a start ... but how does one use it?
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michael said 4:21PM on 6-21-2007
I understand it helps encoding, but would it help in decoding? My lowly 1.25Ghz Powerbook struggles to play HD h.264.
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michael said 4:22PM on 6-21-2007
I understand it helps encoding, but would it help in decoding? My lowly 1.25Ghz Powerbook struggles to play HD h.264.
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Erica Sadun said 4:21PM on 6-21-2007
Gordan: You either export using QuickTime (choose for example, "Movie to Apple TV (Elgato Turbo.264)") or you use the standalone application (drag, drop, and press encode).
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Erica Sadun said 4:22PM on 6-21-2007
Michael: no decoding help at all.
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Michael said 4:24PM on 6-21-2007
oops, sorry for the double post, but thanks for answering my question
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Jeffrey Bergier said 4:37PM on 6-21-2007
does it work on USB 1.1? Does it work for decoding h.264? Currently my Pismo has pretty much zero capability of playing anything more difficult than DivX. I would love to get h.264 from it.
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Gordon Werner said 4:45PM on 6-21-2007
if it is plugged in ... does it take over automatically? or do you have to tell the computer to use the dongle?
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Erica Sadun said 4:47PM on 6-21-2007
Gordon: There's no "taking over". When you first run the software, it installs essentially three new QuickTime components. You can choose one of these three (AppleTV, iPod, PSP) from any QuickTime Export menu. If EyeTV detects these components, it uses them (or at least tries) for export. The Turbo.264 software always uses the dongle.
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Michael May said 4:55PM on 6-21-2007
It will probably work with USB 1.1, but I doubt the bandwidth will be big enough for it to make a difference. I may be wrong though.
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Billy K said 5:00PM on 6-21-2007
No Handbrake = no purchase.
I was very excited about this product until I read that. I'm sure there are specific technical reasons for this, but talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
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Eleventeen said 5:01PM on 6-21-2007
I can just see someone hacking up a way to run a bunch of them to use them for parallel processing. Mac mini + a couple of these bad boys gives you a mobile video conversion unit.
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Gordon Werner said 5:31PM on 6-21-2007
thank you Erica ... that is what I wanted to know
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Jeff Jolley said 12:38PM on 6-27-2007
I have one--I love it. For QT export, it adds hard-coded Turbo-264 export options to all quicktime apps. It does NOT let you set your own export settings. You get AppleTV, iPod Video Hi/Low, and PSP export options (4 of them). The OPTIONS button is grayed-out when you select a Turbo-264 export.
The manual tells you basically how it works, like AppleTV export reduces the video to fit within a 800x600 box, so 720x480 DVDs will still be 720x480. But I find my DVD conversions altered to be narrow-and-tall. So I always rip ipod high, and it pretty much works. Just wish I could set my export options the way I want them.
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Josh said 5:50PM on 6-21-2007
So this won't help out my 8-core Mac Pro?
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pariah said 5:56PM on 6-21-2007
I've had the Turbo.264 for a couple of weeks now:
* It encodes *much* faster than my PPC Mac Mini @ 1.4 GHz & 1 GB RAM. I realize that I'm stacking the deck a bit, but it's what I've got hooked up to my HDTV.
* Turbo.264 is great for all movie types, but it really shines if you use a TV tuner and something like (ElGato's) EyeTV. It makes it a cinch to record a TV show and then encode it to h.264 for iTunes, iPod, or Apple TV (or XBox 360 via NullRiver's Connect360).
* The only real reason HandBrake won't use the Turbo.264 is because HandBrake only lets you use codecs of its choice -- you can't use DivX Pro with HandBrake, nor can you use QuickTime's h.264 encoder, or any other QuickTime codec or profile -- you have to use xvid and x.264) I seriously doubt it's a problem with the Turbo.264 not being available for handbrake to use; the problem seems to be entirely because HandBrake will only let you use "free" codec implementations.
* Turbo.264 will only encode at a maximum of 800x600. This means that it'll record DVD-quality video fine, but no 1080 HD video.
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phil Bridges said 6:29PM on 6-21-2007
For anyone's who is interested Don McAllister recently did a screencast on the Turbo 264 recently - http://tinyurl.com/2pqctc .
I use one of those every day with an intel mini/eye TV combination and find it's around a 3-4 times encoding speed improvement, plus as encoding is 'outboard' so it frees up the Mac's processor(s) for other tasks.
I suspect It would really be up the Handbrake developers to address the H264's hardware rather than the other away round, ditto Visual hub.. but anyhow the best £70 I've spent in a long while .
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Dalton said 6:21PM on 6-21-2007
I'm curious - what is the video quality like? I use VisualHub at the "GoNuts" preset, which is pretty fantastic. Is this device comparable?
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Erica Sadun said 6:25PM on 6-21-2007
The quality looks very good. Comparable to the software export.
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mentalsticks said 6:47PM on 6-21-2007
I got mine about a week ago and I am slightly, but not very, disappointed.
Compared to VisualHub there's just a slight speed increase. But what's worse is the included software. It is very inflexible: no cropping, choosing languages or subtitles, setting bitrates.., which would be fine if it always worked, but on the first DVD I encoded I got the director's comment instead of the soundtrack.
On the plus side, VisualHub used to hog all processor resources while turbo.264 lets you do other stuff while encoding.
I'd be delighted if it would work with VisualHub or HandBrake (which is not Elgato's 'fault' but VH's & HB's). As for now, it's just okay.
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