Elgato Turbo.264 Expert Reviews

Elgato's Turbo.264 HD speeds up QuickTime-compatible video encoding on slow and fast Macs but trades speed for a measure of quality.

Impressively speeds up compatible-video encoding ; lets you trim video clips before importing ; can gang together multiple clips

Resulting video isn't as good looking as video encoded with other methods ; software a little unstable

Earlier this year, Elgato released the Turbo.264's more-powerful sibling, the Intel-only Earlier this year, Elgato released the Turbo.264's more-powerful sibling, the Intel-only $150 Turbo.264 HD. Like the original Turbo.264, the HD model is designed ...

Elgato, makers of eyetv 3, have come out with another way to convert your video files. The turbo.264 is a quick and easy way to convert your videos to H.264(mp4) files. You can play the resulting files on several players. Most importantly, this Mac ...

The Gadget: Although the Elgato Turbo.264 hardware encoder has been around for a while, products have been released that make h.264 one of the most, if not the most important video codecs out there. Not only is it supported by the iPod classic, there ...

Encoding video is not normally ones idea of fun, but Elgato promises to take out some of the pain for Mac users by making the process up to 4x faster, with their Turbo.264. Does it live up to it's claims, and more importantly, is it worth your $100?

Small footprint, Fast encodes, Keeps system resources free while doing most of the dirty work., Solid one-click EyeTV support, Excellent value for the speed that can be achieved.

No encoding options are offered., Programs must be able to export using QuickTime., The quality was occasionally worse than other encoding tools., Cannot encode in HD. 780 support would have been welcomed.

These days, almost every Mac user in the world has some sort of collection of videos on his or her computer - home movies, TV shows, short clips, and even professionally produced...

Must-have for G4 & G5 systems ; easy to use ; great video output

Buggy/limited DVD conversion ; no custom settings ; no subtitles

When the Turbo.264 was announced, I was immediately skeptical. How could a USB dongle make H.264 encoding faster? It had to be marketing spin. Was it?

Blazing fast encoding of H.264 video ; Simple to use ; Compact and unintrusive

Custom profiles don't work in other apps ; Mac OS only ; Somewhat pricey for a specialty device

It's hard not to be skeptical when some tech company comes forward with a new "change the world" device. Logic would dictate that you couldn't speed up a really fast dual core CPUs processing video over a slow (comparatively) connection to a USB ...

These days, almost every Mac user in the world has some sort of collection of videos on his or her computer - home movies, TV shows, short clips, and even professionally produced...

Must-have for G4 & G5 systems ; easy to use ; great video output

Buggy/limited DVD conversion ; no custom settings ; no subtitles

Will this save you time encoding clips?

Simple and easy to use, Works with iMovie and EyeTV, YouTube format support

Dongle is wide so you'll need to use the extending cable in the box, doesn't save you masses of time

Yes you can already do this via iMovie or QuickTime already, but it's a slow process and this should make that process a little bit quicker

The original Turbo.264 saved time creating H.264 video, particularly on PowerPC Macs that struggle to cope with software encoding. The latest Intel Macs can encode in a fraction of the time, but this version is faster, can convert AVCHD footage, and ...

Turbo.264 HD manages to improve on its predecessor and even more so on software encoding, even on Intel Macs, yet the higher price tag is off-putting and only worth it if you need to convert your HD footage

Even faster iPod-friendly H.264 video transcoding, now with full HD support. Shame it's twice the price than before, though.

If you already have a Turbo.264 and you're not an AVCHD camcorder owner, the Turbo.264 HD is more 'nice to have' than 'must have'. If you use it casually, you probably won't want to cough up for the upgrade. For the serious video shooter, or if you ...