Speed Up Encoding With Turbo.264
The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) has a hands-on review of the Elgato Turbo.264 hardware coprocessor for speeding up the encoding of videos into formats suitable for the Apple TV, iPod and Sony PSP. The device costs $99.95 and plugs into a USB 2.0 port on your Macintosh, offloading the encoding functions from the main computer processor.
TUAW comes away impressed, saying it significantly cut down on encoding times and freed CPU cycles. They recommended it for older Mac users — it could certainly extend the useful life of that old PowerBook G4. And in time-critical applications, such as editing and encoding video reports from the field, it can mean the difference between getting the scoop and being late to the party.
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.
That lil’ gadget looks pretty hot. I always encode in h.264 (cuz it’s the tops!). Too bad the TUAW review only talks about ripping and compressing DVDs. I’d love how it works with Final Cut Pro…
Seems like a good item. Seems to me you’d get your money’s worth the first couple times you used it and became “first to the party” with excellent-looking video delivered in a timely fashion.
Waiting for dual-pass h.264 is a complete DRAG, for real! :/