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Elgato Turbo 264
- Thread starter PilotWoo
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I have this (bought used on here) and love it! I use it mostly to convert videos to use on my iPod. When I am ripping to the "iPod Standard" option, I get around 80 fps, which is incredible when before I was getting around 5. I haven't tried the AppleTV preset, but if that doesn't meet your needs, there is also the option to set your own settings with the included software. I'm sure you could make one that meets your requirements.
So far, it is definitely worth the money. Buying this was a lot cheaper than buying a new computer (which I thought about doing because my conversion speeds were so bad). The speed jump is much more noticeable in older Macs, such as G5's and G4's, but not as dramatic in Intel's.
So far, it is definitely worth the money. Buying this was a lot cheaper than buying a new computer (which I thought about doing because my conversion speeds were so bad). The speed jump is much more noticeable in older Macs, such as G5's and G4's, but not as dramatic in Intel's.
the 264 converts at a lower rate. but i can convert a movie using my mbp in about an hour or less... whereas handbrake takes 2 1/2. i love them both and decide which one i use by which movies i like more. unless you're a nut about your movie quality, i think the elgato is great. if you have the cash, try it out.
I read the reviews on this piece of hardware and, while everyone was impressed with its speed, no one liked the output. I debated purchasing it and decided against it.
Read again what the previous posters have written to see what they are really saying, then read the product reviews by MacWorld, etc., before deciding to buy this.
Speed isn't everything. Especially when quality is.
-- Mikie
Read again what the previous posters have written to see what they are really saying, then read the product reviews by MacWorld, etc., before deciding to buy this.
Speed isn't everything. Especially when quality is.
-- Mikie
The latest version of the app allows alot of tweaking including Bitrate, the only thing I'd like to see them add is a two pass option.
I am not looking to argue, but rather to be educated. When you say "pretty darn good," do you mean, "It is indistinguishable from the Handbrake AppleTV preset?" Because, if you are, and you assure me that Handbrake's quality can be duplicated but at a much faster speed, then I will buy one. Plain and simple.
-- Mikie
Quality is not as good as Handbrake and you can't use the 264 with Handbrake. Personally, I switch off between the two. I like the option. If you're critical of your quality (which i am not) you will not like the 264. If you want it to convert for your ipod, iphone or other portables or even tv shows that you don't really need in higher quality, then it is awesome and much faster than Handbrake (for me). They finally got their software working pretty damn good. I use my 264 all the time. You can also get one off Ebay for about $60 bucks.
Quality will always be slightly better and file sizes smaller using 2 pass, which Handbrake has and Turbo264 does not, that being said , their Apple TV Encodes, which get upconverted to 720p on my set look nice, they don't suffer from artifacting if you use about a 2500 bitrate. I take the slightly lower quality, and believe me it's slightly lower, for the trade off of speed.
So I just got an iPod classic (my first iPod with a color screen!) and have been ripping DVDs to my Mac to put on the iPod. I am using Handbrake on a rev A iMac G5 1.8 Ghz. It takes forever to rip and convert. I was ripping Arrested Development episodes and it takes me about an hour and a half per episode.
So my question to anyone with a machine similar to mine: What kind of time decrease will I see? Does this hour and half reduce to thirty minutes? For a machine with my specs, is it worth the cost of the device? I am only ripping for the iPod and I am not too concerned about quality. I find the Handbrake iPod preset with one-pass encoding to be just fine for my needs.
Thanks...
So my question to anyone with a machine similar to mine: What kind of time decrease will I see? Does this hour and half reduce to thirty minutes? For a machine with my specs, is it worth the cost of the device? I am only ripping for the iPod and I am not too concerned about quality. I find the Handbrake iPod preset with one-pass encoding to be just fine for my needs.
Thanks...
I Have a 1.42 ghz Mac Mini PPC with a gig of Ram, seems you machine is a step up from mine. If you are ripping to Ipod 320x240 resolution, to view on the Ipod Only I get about 60-75 fps, slower if I bump it to 640x480. I would say at Ipod Standard res, a 30 minute show should be done in about 20 min.
My computer is a 2GHz G5 iMac, similar to yours. I was getting similar results before I got the turbo.264. On "iPod Standard" setting in the turbo.264 software, I can do a 30 minute episoded in 10 minutes, usually 70-80fps! It's a huge jump from before and my iMac's fans don't go as nuts. These files looks great on the iPod.
Hardware encoders will never be as good as software ones. There's all kinds of reasons, such as two pass options, and advanced h264 encoder options (high profile settings, etc). They can be faster depending on your CPU, etc, though.
That's not quite accurate. File size will be exactly the same for a one or two pass encode at a given bitrate, the quality will be better for the two pass encode. You can target a lower bitrate with two pass encoding and get the same quality at a lower bitrate than a one pass encode, though.
Sounds like your using h264 in handbrake (the default for the iPod presets)? I'd personally just use MPEG4 for iPod videos. I have a 5G iPod and on my old machine (1.42ghz G4 Mac mini) I did lots of TV show DVD to iPod conversions and used MPEG4 2-pass, 320x240 resolution, and a target size of 200mb for 1hour/45min shows and 100mb for half hour/22min shows. On the G4 a half hour episode (22 min) took ~30-40 min and looked great on the iPod screen (not so great on a TV, but if it's just for iPod use then it's fine).
amen. The output is ok, but not fantastic. Whilst you can tweak now, you can't get too granular. The other thing is, by the time you tweak the settings it winds up being as fast to use visualhub - which is why imho el gato decided to leave the settings 'lower'
i am undecided if i am going to be holding on to it, but the price isn't too bad... i think the quality issues are most definitely more noticeable in transcoding compared to dvd ripping - and i also have some faith that el gato will make improvements to the software. There are + and - to the product, if $80 seems like a lot of money to you (not knocking that at all) probably it's not money well spent. If you're ok spending $80 for something you'll use here and there.. go for it.
BTW - forget transcoding mkv using the software, it is 25% the speed of visualhub in mkv transcoding with the offboard processor, lol. now that bugs me.
one place the product does SHINE is the low res ipod standard encodes.. i get about 120 fps doing those - the speed benefit for users of apple tv on a new intel based mac are almost non existent - maybe 10-20%, if that... which could be as little as 3-4 fps.
I love mine , without it I would'nt be encoding in H264, my PPC mini would take about 5 hours to encode an Hour TV show, with the Elgato I can do it in an Hour or less.
I have the Turbo 264 and I'm quite impressed with it, but using the bundled software I don't seem to be getting chapter marks in my converted movies. Anyone know if Popcorn would preserve the DVD chapter marks?
Popcorn 3 has the ability to automatically insert chapter markers at every 1, 2, 3, 5, or 10 minutes, and it also has "automatic", which I took to mean using the chapter marks on the actual DVD (it isn't described in the helps). However, last night I encoded a DVD with it set to "automatic" and it completely ignored all chapter markers as far as I can tell. Next time I'll try time-based chapters.
BTW, even though Popcorn has a multi-pass option I don't know if it uses the turbo.264 when that is turned on. It was so slow I canceled it and went back to single pass.
BTW, even though Popcorn has a multi-pass option I don't know if it uses the turbo.264 when that is turned on. It was so slow I canceled it and went back to single pass.