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.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
6-21-2007 @ 4:21PM
Erica Sadun said...
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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6-21-2007 @ 4:21PM
michael said...
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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6-21-2007 @ 4:22PM
Erica Sadun said...
Michael: no decoding help at all.
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6-21-2007 @ 4:22PM
michael said...
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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6-21-2007 @ 4:24PM
Michael said...
oops, sorry for the double post, but thanks for answering my question
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6-21-2007 @ 4:26PM
Gordon Werner said...
Saying that it will not work with handbrake is a start ... but how does one use it?
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6-21-2007 @ 4:37PM
Jeffrey Bergier said...
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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6-21-2007 @ 4:45PM
Gordon Werner said...
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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6-21-2007 @ 4:47PM
Erica Sadun said...
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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6-21-2007 @ 4:55PM
Michael May said...
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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6-21-2007 @ 5:00PM
Billy K said...
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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6-21-2007 @ 5:01PM
Eleventeen said...
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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6-21-2007 @ 5:31PM
Gordon Werner said...
thank you Erica ... that is what I wanted to know
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6-21-2007 @ 5:50PM
Josh said...
So this won't help out my 8-core Mac Pro?
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6-21-2007 @ 5:56PM
pariah said...
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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6-21-2007 @ 6:21PM
Dalton said...
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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6-21-2007 @ 6:25PM
Erica Sadun said...
The quality looks very good. Comparable to the software export.
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6-21-2007 @ 6:29PM
phil Bridges said...
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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6-21-2007 @ 6:47PM
mentalsticks said...
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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6-21-2007 @ 7:51PM
Aron Trimble said...
Screw the Turbo.264...!
What mac is THAT in the background!?
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