Elgato debuts Turbo.264 HD Software Edition, cuts price of hardware edition

Here at Engadget HQ, there's hardly a more overused piece of equipment than Elgato's (Mac only) Turbo.264 HD -- in our experience, it chews through bloated video files at a breakneck pace, leaving us with shrunken versions of CES hands-on and the like without any noticeable degradation in quality. Now, that same functionality is being introduced sans an easy-to-forget USB dongle as the Turbo.264 HD Software Edition. For all intents and purposes, the SE version does the exact same thing as the original, albeit at a presumably slower pace. 'Course, it'll still convert videos for use on portable devices (or just shrink the files sizes for easier archiving) far quicker than whatever method you're using now, and the $49.95 price tag is certainly a bit easier to swallow. Oh, and speaking of MSRPs -- Elgato just hacked $50 from the price of the hardware-accelerated version, leaving it at a delectable $99.95. Mmm, files. Delicious.

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Turbo.264 HD Software Edition - The Easy Way to Convert Camcorder & Video Files for iPhone, iPad

San Francisco, CA - July 15, 2010 - Elgato, the makers of the award-winning EyeTV product line, today released a software edition of Turbo.264 HD, a versatile and easy-to-use video converter for the Mac. Turbo.264 HD gives users the ability to instantly edit HD camcorder clips without converting them first, and supports nearly any kind of video source format. It uses advanced encoding technology to convert any video file to a very high-quality iPhone- and iPad-compatible format. The interface is extremely easy-to-use and offers pre-installed output formats for iPad, iPhone, YouTube and many others. The software edition of Turbo.264 HD is available for download immediately in the Elgato Online Store at a price of $49.95 USD. A hardware-accelerated version of Turbo.264 HD is also available.

Get instant access to HD camcorder video
Sharing HD camcorder clips with friends on a Mac, iPad, or YouTube account is easier and faster with Turbo.264 HD. The software automatically detects USB camcorders and enables users to preview and edit video clips before importing them. Unlike other applications, Turbo.264 HD Software Edition does not require a lengthy conversion into an intermediate format.

Superior-quality video for iPad from nearly any format
Turbo.264 HD can handle nearly any kind of video file, including formats that are non-native on the Mac such as MKV or wmv. Turbo.264 automatically adds converted videos into iTunes to sync with connected Apple devices. Video collectors can add details before converting, such as a description and episode numbers, to keep their iTunes library organized.

Convert video to the universal H.264 format – fast
Using advanced encoding technology, Turbo.264 HD converts standard- and high-definition files faster than other H.264 video encoders. There is no compromise on quality since Turbo.264 HD follows Apple's specifications for H.264 videos and uses Elgato's unique Progressive Scan method for video deinterlacing.

Hardware-accelerated version of Turbo.264 HD
Turbo.264 HD is available in a software edition, and a hardware-accelerated version is also available. The hardware-accelerated version of Turbo.264 HD boosts the speed of video conversion from two to four times, even on the fastest Mac. The hardware accelerator connects via USB to act as a "co-processor" and comes complete with the software.

Availability
Turbo.264 HD Software Edition is available for download at a price of $49.95 in the Elgato Online Store (www.elgato.com). A free trial is available here: http://downloads2.elgato.com/turbodownloads/demo/software/turbohd_demo.dmg. The Turbo.264 HD (with hardware accelerator) is available in the Elgato Online Store at a price of $99.95.


About Elgato
Elgato produces award-winning TV software together with a complete range of TV tuners and capture devices to watch, record, and edit TV and HDTV on Macs and PCs. Elgato is the home of EyeTV, the world's leading television solution for Mac computers. Elgato also produces a variety of world-class H.264 video conversion and streaming products. Elgato is privately held with offices in Munich, Germany and San Francisco, California.

[Ninetysix Posted Jul 15th 2010 1:34PM]

What's a good PC equivalent of this? Thanks!

[Chris Harrington Posted Jul 15th 2010 1:37PM]

@Ninetysix
Handbrake comes to mind
Mac, Windows, and Linux - and free

[Evan Posted Jul 15th 2010 1:54PM]

@Ninetysix

There's no way this thing out performs babadoom.

[10nisman94 Posted Jul 15th 2010 2:07PM]

@Evan Handbrake has better quality than badaboom

[thisisit Posted Jul 15th 2010 1:36PM]

yeah, now we

[Nod Flenders Posted Jul 15th 2010 1:44PM]

@thisisit Change your picture plz

[a dumb cat Posted Jul 15th 2010 1:47PM]

@Nod Flenders Change ur picture plz.

[BerkleyBerkley2011 Posted Jul 15th 2010 1:36PM]

lol, Mac only.. I guess they only wanted to sell to around 8% of the world's population? Great strategy.

[Uncontrol Posted Jul 15th 2010 1:45PM]

@BerkleyBerkley2011 Yes, they wanted to sell to the 8% of computer users who've already shown they don't mind paying premium prices for the product they really want.

There's nothing wrong with appealing to a niche market; in many ways, you have far better chances than trying to appealing to everyone.

[worthbak Posted Jul 15th 2010 1:46PM]

@BerkleyBerkley2011 Mac users generally have a greater amount of dispensable income to spend on relatively expensive add-ons like these. Also, Mac users have a reputation for spending more time working with and editing high-def media. So yeah, I'd say it's a pretty good strategy - Mac users can afford their product, and also make up their target market.

[BerkleyBerkley2011 Posted Jul 15th 2010 1:47PM]

@Uncontrol
Yeah that'll hold up in this slowing economy.

[memeslayer Posted Jul 15th 2010 1:48PM]

@BerkleyBerkley2011 Every Mac user is proven premium user who doesn't mind spending money for value they are getting. 70% of PC users will be either in third world with not much willingness to spend, or running pirated copies of windows who doesn't know concept of paying for software or just cheap. Mac market share may be just 8% and in market for TV Tuner mac users may be more like 30-40%.

[Uncontrol Posted Jul 15th 2010 1:52PM]

@BerkleyBerkley2011 Everyone loves to trot out the "in this economy" line, but the evidence points to Mac sales not slowing down, but rather increasing year after year. So where's your evidence that the economy will affect this at all?

[BerkleyBerkley2011 Posted Jul 15th 2010 1:58PM]

@Uncontrol
Just wait until they recall 2 million iPhone 4's.. what a garbage phone that is.. oh wait Engadget says 9/10.

[BerkleyBerkley2011 Posted Jul 15th 2010 2:04PM]

@memeslayer
LOL 30-40% for TV tuners, what a joke. Pretty sure Motorola owns that stat.

[Jack Posted Jul 15th 2010 2:15PM]

@BerkleyBerkley2011

You're stupid. You're taking one issue - an antenna related issue that only affects a small population of iPhone 4 owners - and extrapolating that to mean the entire phone is "garbage".

How dumb do you have to be to do that? Obviously it didn't get a 9/10 because of the antenna. It got it for every OTHER reason that you are conveniently neglecting to mention. And this is despite the fact that the antenna on the iPhone 4 is actually better than antennas on previous iPhones and better than antennas on other phones too.

Just... stop being stupid.

[nicholas1987ucsb Posted Jul 15th 2010 2:40PM]

@Jack Fanboys are so ignorant. They have perpetual tunnel vision. Not you, I agree with what you are saying.

[memeslayer Posted Jul 15th 2010 1:37PM]

Super cool. It was never easy to pirate USB dongle.

[Rivella Posted Jul 15th 2010 1:45PM]

Elgato stands for quality. I wish there was a TV tuner for Windows even remotely as good as EyeTV.

[JungleJim Posted Jul 15th 2010 1:46PM]

d@mnit. I just paid full price for this at Tekserve in May. This must be how the first iPhone owners feel.
It's worth mentioning that the dongle is compatible with QT and also greatly improved the streaming performance of Elgato's EyeTV app that my poor old '06 Macbook could never handle.

[Chappy Posted Jul 15th 2010 2:02PM]

Note that I still see audio sync problems with this device. It cannot create correct synchronization when writing to slow drives (a Drobo for example) or when a lot of other applications are working. Their own support staff acknowledge this limitation. In my experience, this only works well when you're writing to an internal hard drive when no other applications are working.

Also note that this software does not offer the range of configuration and preview options that Handbrake does. Even video cropping becomes a matter of trial and error.

[pika2000 Posted Jul 15th 2010 2:02PM]

Question is, how would this be any faster than other regular software solution then (eg. x264)? Does it use OpenCL? Would be great if there's a quality comparison (there's a lot of software solution claims "fast" but the quality is obviously low).

[Graham J Posted Jul 15th 2010 3:20PM]

@pika2000

Ya I was wondering that too - I'm not sure how it would be "far quicker than whatever method you're using now" (even assuming that method is software-only)

[bloggingpig Posted Jul 15th 2010 6:11PM]

1. Their own benchmarks for the faster HARDWARE encoder here:
www. elgato. com/elgato/int/mainmenu/products/Turbo264HD/product2.en.html

It's only for H.264 AVCHD input to H.264 iPad compatible output, or straight to H.264 iPad compatible output. (whatever that means.... like what? iPad isn't capable of handing measly 1080 H.264 playback? lol)

In any case, it's pushing less than a 3x speed advantage IN HARDWARE. (Elgato Software will be slower.)

2. i7 @ six cores
www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-gulftown-scaling,2663-7.html
So what happens when you look at the last graph (Handbrake encoding from 1 to 6 cores active)?
Lol... i7 6-core is an encoding moster!

The i7 tested here is already far faster than in the iMac used in #1 above, so it'll be faster than the below figures when compared with Elgato. (vs. Elgato hardware - remember, Elgato software is slower...)

4:19 for 2 active cores, dropping to 1:50 with 6-cores. 2.4x faster when all 6 cores fully active vs. 2.

So, if you fudge, about the same either way: hardware Elgato or i7 6-core, you'll likely be running encodes just as fast. Latter, of course, lets you run everything faster.

3. Don't have $$$ Bank?
$200 or so for an AMD X6
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3674/amds-sixcore-phenom-ii-x6-1090t-1055t-reviewed/6
Or overclocked i5 will do just about the same as #2.

4. Wondering WHY Adobe Premiere CS5 went to NVIDIA GPU accelerated encoding?

videomaker.com/content/images/article/14661/pdf14661.pdf
nvidia.com/object/io_1257932071081.html
nero.com/enu/moveit-nvidia-cuda.html
mainconcept.com/fileadmin/user_upload/download/product_sheets/CUDA-Sheets_06-2010.pdf
corecodec.com/products/coreavc

Combos FASTER than a two quad-core CPU setup (yes, two physical CPUs) are possible. (YES, FASTER than #1-#3 above!)

Now why on earth bother with yet another external USB stick for H.264 encoding when you might as well just drop in a ~$200 GPU card? (and play Modern Warfare 2 nicely) Remember, the superior performance still occurs on slow CPU systems because the entire thing is off-loaded to the GPU for processing/encoding!

Drop 2+ GPU cards in, and well... hee, heee. you've got yourself a King Kong rendering farm =D

5. Nothing new, hardware technology wise.

Elgato is merely an H.264 encoding chip similar to that found in AVCHD camcorders packaged into a USB stick w/o camcorder lens or body.

Nothing new, software wise - esp. if you're cheap and looking for a free H.264 encoder.

Pretty much Nero Recode (assuming you bought a DVD writer with the free software included), Premiere/Vegas Video/etc (assuming you've already got a nice video editing program), and all these listed here:

www.videohelp.com/tools?toolsearch=&Submit=Search&convert=&s=109&orderby=Name&hits=50

can encode to H.264 in software today if you've got a coffee break.

eg. Nero Recode works for me - came with my DVD burner, has lots of customizable settings (encoding quality, frame size, rate, interlace, 1 or 2-pass, etc) - and chugs along to output PSP, iSomething, H.264, and MPEG-4 video formats in one program.

[AdamWill Posted Jul 15th 2010 7:05PM]

I'll bet ten bucks it's just an ffmpeg GUI. When was the last time anyone wrote a transcoder that *wasn't*?

"'Course, it'll still convert videos for use on portable devices (or just shrink the files sizes for easier archiving) far quicker than whatever method you're using now"

Really, Engadget? How do you reckon it'll do that without a hardware encoder, which is what the USB stick from the hardware edition is? Unless they've actually written their own encoders which are somehow massively faster than the widely-used ones already out there (uh...ffmpeg), I don't see how it possibly can.