Elgato's Turbo 264 USB stick painlessly coverts vidz to H.264

It's taking a bit longer than expected, but sure enough, manufacturers are coming out of the woodwork to give the iPod / iPhone-to-be customers an easy way to convert videos to H.264. Following ADS Tech's lead, Elgato is on the scene with a Mac-compatible USB stick that acts as a hardware encoder to get your clips and flicks from whatever format they're currently in (within reason, we presume) into a format widely recognized by Apple-branded paraphernalia. Reportedly, the device speeds up the encoding process "by two to four times," and partially relieves your Mac's CPU of the transcoding duties by handling most of the dirty work (shown after the break) within itself. So if you're more interested in forking over your hard-earned cash for an easy solution to your file conversion needs, Elgato's Turbo 264 should be landing around the April timeframe for €99 ($132).

[Via iPhone-Scene]

[Chris @ Apr 2nd 2007 8:21PM]

wonder if they will open the API to use with other OS's

[gxti @ Apr 2nd 2007 8:39PM]

Seriously. I want one (or five) of these in my PCI slots. But only if I can use it with x264, and do High Profile, none of that crappy Apple-sponsored Base Profile crap.

[oj @ Apr 2nd 2007 8:50PM]

i wonder if it will also help decoding

[kingofwale @ Apr 2nd 2007 8:59PM]

First of all, 132 dollars? are you kidding me??

Second. I will get it if it coverts ALL the files to Ipod/PSP.

that includes:

.MVK
.RM
.FLV

if it doesn't, then no thanks

[Leonard Nimrod @ Apr 2nd 2007 9:37PM]

Unless the devices uses ffmpeg or the next version of ffmpegx for OS X or Super for Windows will work with this device then the answer is no.

[Randy Stewart @ Apr 2nd 2007 9:14PM]

Color me skeptical, but I don't think a USB device can really speed up the heavy H.264 encoding process by 2 to 4 times. I'll believe it when I see it.

Of course, if it's true, I'll be the first in line.

Randy Stewart
[e-mail]

[OverburN @ Apr 3rd 2007 2:29AM]

If it really is a hardware device it can speed up encoding speeds alot. Think of using your computer running software to encode mpeg2 versus a hardware mpeg2 encoder. the hardware encoder does it faster.

[brett @ Apr 2nd 2007 9:29PM]

Aside from its intended purpose...

...that's one of the sexier USB stick designs I've seen.

[Dr Buzz0 @ Apr 2nd 2007 9:45PM]

Id be interested IF: it could do better quality than just ipod-type low-bitrate stuff. If itll do hdtv, then sold! Of course, asking it to do hdtv in real time is a bit much, but even if its just going to take a load off my CPU, I'd still buy it!

[Chris @ Apr 2nd 2007 9:47PM]

If it's anything like the Windows version from ADS tech I've been using for the last few months it works just fine.

http://www.adstech.com/products/RDX-160/intro/RDX-160_intro.asp?pid=RDX-160

[Jeff Lewis @ Apr 3rd 2007 4:27AM]

It's not just 'anything like'... it's the same product. Elgato tends to take other company's hardware, rebrand it and write Mac compatible drivers and software for it.

Their eyeTV Hybrid is the Hauppauge HVR-950.

Nothing wrong with that - heck, half the PC USB TV Tuners are rebadged products from like three companies in Korea.

[jack meyhauffer @ Apr 2nd 2007 10:19PM]

It is rumored that apple will be shipping Macs with onboard hardware that will speed up encoding and decoding of video. Save your cash for the real thing.

[Jeff @ Apr 2nd 2007 10:21PM]

i certainly hope so, but i'd also like to see a cheap PCI card that'd do this for my old mac.

[Gigi @ Jan 2nd 2008 2:13PM]

What are you using now for encrypted DVD'?. I have Popcorn 2 and can't record my movies.

[Samuel McConnell @ Apr 2nd 2007 10:28PM]

I'm pretty thrilled about how fast my Macbook Pro can encode H.264 320x240. I don't really need a hardware encoder for that. Now, on the other hand, H.264 encoding on my old G4 iBook was painful...this would be good for that.

[lol @ Apr 2nd 2007 11:14PM]

A dinky 5W thing to speed up H.264 encoding? Okay...*chortle*

[gxti @ Apr 3rd 2007 12:55AM]

Hardware encoders are superior to CPUs when it comes to doing specific tasks, like DCTs, motion detection, etc. A little design goes a long way. There's actually a substantial market for hardware encoders and decoders, because it takes a 3ghz machine to encode HDTV realtime, but only 500mhz is sufficient for an embedded device (i.e. TiVo) if it has a "buddy chip" to do all the heavy lifting.

[badnegro @ Apr 3rd 2007 10:57AM]

If it'll take the firewire feed from my Motorola HD DVR and convert the raw MPEG2 (.m2t) to h.264 and keep it 1920x1080 (or even downgrade it to 1280x720), I'm there! And then there'll be MTV HD all over the t0rrent sites!

Here's hoping!

[Jens Schwoon @ Apr 3rd 2007 11:11AM]

nice video anyway.. "dead men don't wear plaid" is in black and white and one of the best films I ever saw.....

[thehand @ Apr 4th 2007 2:43AM]

the bandwith isn't the issue (USB vs Firwire). Encoding takes all the CPU you've got and if you're trying to do something else like watching HD content, which takes a lot of power, well, you will notice it. Firewire or Fiber isn't going to help because the burden is on the processesor which is why Apple Tv and a hardware encoder make a lot of sense. You use the Apple TV to decode and watch up to 720P HD and a hardware encoder for the dirty work and now all you have to have is a mini for the rest.

This product coming out helps me believe the rumour that Apple plans to include hardware encoding the future Macs.

The thing that I'm concerned with is how much involvement I will be allowed in the encoding process.