MacMerc.com: Review >> Elgato turbo.264

MacMerc.com: Review >> Elgato turbo.264

"Elgato makes some of the coolest consumer video hardware for the Mac (or anything). So we were pleased to hear that they are out to speed the arduous process of conversion to the latest-greatest in codecs: H.264. Elgato's EyeTV hardware has packed countless hours of programming to high-quality files for EyeTV. With the turbo.264 dongle, get ready to compress video for your iPod and Apple TV twice as fast as your processor."


USB dongle accelerates H.264 encoding - iSquint took 11 minutes, turbo.264 took 7. I'd be curious to see how good the footage looked, and compare that to Apple's AppleTV preset to get a better apples to apples comparison.

The test machine was a 500 MHz G4 - and that's ooollllllllllld hardware, so saying this device converts faster than software is like saying a scooter is faster than grampa with a bad hip.

They are available from the HD For Indies Amazon Store - Elgato Turbo.264 - Video H.264 (MP4) Encoder Hardware for $89.

Apples and Oranges Hands-On: Apple TV vs. TiVo Series3 HD - Gizmodo

Apples and Oranges Hands-On: Apple TV vs. TiVo Series3 HD - Gizmodo

They compare the features the two have in common - looking at pictures, surfing music, looking at downloaded content.

My favorite observation:

Both Unbox and the iTunes Store don't have enough movie and TV show content for our taste, and both can't deliver HDTV movies or TV shows. So in our mind, for now, they both suck.


They were fair in their analysis, no BS comparisons or sucker punches - in other words, I agree with their analysis.

:D

Fun little read, spot on in my book.

-mike