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Elgato Turbo 264

pjarvi said:
While it doesn't look too bad in a paused frame, in motion the colors shift quite a bit causing some weird flickering. At low bit rates, there's heavy macro-blocking as well. The encode I did at 1200kbps wasn't very good, I did another encode at 4000kbps that looks great, but also came out at over 3GB! It looks like somewhere right around 2000kbps will be the sweet spot to fulfill my own needs.

All in all, I would have to say that I'm happy with the purchase. Encoding an entire movie in a little over an hour, versus the 8-12 hours I used to wait for, is worth the loss of some detail. Hopefully Elgato will continue to improve the software, right now I wouldn't trust leaving everything on Automatic (such as the issue with it not turning Overscan off with Bachelor Party), and we need a way to select individual episodes for multi-episode discs.
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I see. HB Apple TV default is 2500kbps, single pass. So a movie thats about 1:30 min s/b around 1700kbps and any other movie over 2 hours s/b around 2000 or 2500kbps? I'l have to to try it with that movie and see how it goes. It's so nice having the Turbo to try out different settings and seeing results within a few hours, because I can't imagine trying these without it. It would take days just to do a comparison.
 
kagharaht said:
<snip> It's so nice having the Turbo to try out different settings and seeing results within a few hours, because I can't imagine trying these without it. It would take days just to do a comparison.
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So true! I did the 2 custom bit rate encodes in one night after I got home from work, plus 2 other encodes. All while watching TV with EyeTV and surfing the net! For me it's almost as addictive as playing videogames. I kept looking at the clock, and thinking: "just 1 more encode before I goto bed". :D
 
pjarvi said:
So true! I did the 2 custom bit rate encodes in one night after I got home from work, plus 2 other encodes. All while watching TV with EyeTV and surfing the net! For me it's almost as addictive as playing videogames. I kept looking at the clock, and thinking: "just 1 more encode before I goto bed". :D
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LOL.. your so right. What I do is rip 7 movies using MTR movie only. I have plenty of space on my iMac G5. Then I just drop them on Elgato and away they go. Off to bed and by morning, its done! It's insane. :)
 
handbrake comparison?

What I'd love to see is a comparison between Handbrake and the Turbo.264. Handbrake has an AppleTV preset too. It's 2500k 1 pass; it's not CBR though. It looks pretty good. Files end up being 1.5 to 2GB but picture quality is really good. The same settings with 2 pass (turbo pass) does look even much better but imho it wouldnt be fair to compare it with Turbo.264...
 
revisiting this thread. It's been a while since I encoded, shortly after this thread started I got busy. At any rate. I recently encoded 2 movies with handbrake (2 pass wth turbo first) and turbo 264.

The Turbo264 is done for me. The quality is so lacking compared to handbrake that the marginal improvements of speed for ipod high aren't worth it. The turbo 1st pass adds about what, 18 minutes to an encode, 25? The second pass gets about 28-30 fps on my 2.4 led mbp. Turbo 264 gets 40 fps Great, it's 40% faster. The resulting files look like crap comparatively - the macroblocking is HORRIBLE with the 264, really really bad on tv output.

I am in a position where i am trying to create ipod compatible but good looking on tv.. turbo.264 cannot accomplish that.
 
h00ligan said:
revisiting this thread. It's been a while since I encoded, shortly after this thread started I got busy. At any rate. I recently encoded 2 movies with handbrake (2 pass wth turbo first) and turbo 264.

The Turbo264 is done for me. The quality is so lacking compared to handbrake that the marginal improvements of speed for ipod high aren't worth it. The turbo 1st pass adds about what, 18 minutes to an encode, 25? The second pass gets about 28-30 fps on my 2.4 led mbp. Turbo 264 gets 40 fps Great, it's 40% faster. The resulting files look like crap comparatively - the macroblocking is HORRIBLE with the 264, really really bad on tv output.

I am in a position where i am trying to create ipod compatible but good looking on tv.. turbo.264 cannot accomplish that.
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Yeah it really Can't I just recently got a Core Duo 2 so I was for a time mainly using the Elgato on my Mini . The Elgato is ok as long as you don't mind throwing a large bitrate at it, but if what you strive is the best looking picture for the smallest file available, then Handbrake's Turbo 1st, or Two Pass is what you want. I did'nt realize how bad the Turbo 264 looked until I used Handbrake.
 
well I'm glad to see i'm not alone! I definitely did give it more of a shot.

I will say though, if i had a batch of things i wanted for ipod only, maybe transcoding or something, i would probably use it, although visualhub is probably the same speed and faster!

All in all, i'm sure this is great for those who have powerpc machines, but not the right choice for me. I really hope they can work it out to do a 2pass, until then, it's taking up room in a drawer or going to mom's house.
 
As I'm going to be on my Power Mac G5 for a while longer I'm considering getting a turbo 264 as I see with the 1.3 version of the software AC3 Passthrough is possible. On the Apple TV pre-set can you also include a stereo track for playback in iTunes as well?
 
Quick Q

The main bulk of transcoding I do is EyeTV recordings to the Touch/iPhone. How much faster will a Turbo 264 be when compared to a 3.2 Octo doing an EyeTV 'iPhone' transcode?
 
Mattww said:
As I'm going to be on my Power Mac G5 for a while longer I'm considering getting a turbo 264 as I see with the 1.3 version of the software AC3 Passthrough is possible. On the Apple TV pre-set can you also include a stereo track for playback in iTunes as well?
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yeah it does that for you automatically
 
Sesshi said:
Quick Q

The main bulk of transcoding I do is EyeTV recordings to the Touch/iPhone. How much faster will a Turbo 264 be when compared to a 3.2 Octo doing an EyeTV 'iPhone' transcode?
Click to expand...

A 3.2Ghz Octo will be many many times faster than Turbo 264 and give better results.

The Turbo 264 is only for those with slower CPUs where transcoding is just too slow otherwise (e.g. PowerPC G4's)

Cheers, Ed.
 
eddyg said:
A 3.2Ghz Octo will be many many times faster than Turbo 264 and give better results.

The Turbo 264 is only for those with slower CPUs where transcoding is just too slow otherwise (e.g. PowerPC G4's)

Cheers, Ed.
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I haven't really paid much attention to the time it took but I was wondering if the seeming lack of multithreaded-ness of the QT-based transcodes was holding it back.
 
Sesshi said:
I haven't really paid much attention to the time it took but I was wondering if the seeming lack of multithreaded-ness of the QT-based transcodes was holding it back.
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Oops - I use HandBrake for EyeTV exports, the standard EyeTV export uses QT, which as you say will not be as fast.

Cheers, Ed.
 
Sesshi said:
I haven't really paid much attention to the time it took but I was wondering if the seeming lack of multithreaded-ness of the QT-based transcodes was holding it back.
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I am using an Octo Core Mac Pro @2.8Ghz and also have a Turbo.264 from my iMac G5 which has power supply woes at the moment.

Generally I might as well just throw out the 264 stick --not that I will-- because the Pro eats video files for breakfast. I can transcode a 42 min TV Show in AVI form into standard iPod, using Handbrake, in approx 3.5 minutes.

I tried using the 264 stick in the Pro using the Elgato application and it was barely quicker than when used in my iMac G5, probably as it was only using one core in both examples. Handbrake takes advantage of all 8 cores and flies through them.

A full DVD ISO image transcoded to Handbrake's AppleTV settings takes around 20 minutes.

If you're using a new Intel-based Mac I'm not sure I would bother with the Turbo.264, use Handbrake!
 
archiewinter said:
I am using an Octo Core Mac Pro @2.8Ghz

A full DVD ISO image transcoded to Handbrake's AppleTV settings takes around 20 minutes.!
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Is that the new Apple TV pre-set in version 0.9.3 or the legacy one? I'm finding that a 45 min TV episode is taking at least 3.5 to 4hrs on my G5!
 
archiewinter said:
If you're using a new Intel-based Mac I'm not sure I would bother with the Turbo.264, use Handbrake!
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I agree with this statement. I have the Turbo.264, I got it to help make my old iMad G5 have a bit longer life, and it did that. Now that I have my Intel iMac, I really see no speed difference between it and using iSquint/Visual hub or Handbrake. I haven't used my Turbo.264 in a while, maybe I'll sell it now that I think about it.

To the marketplace I go----->>>!!!!!!!!
 
The Elgato Turbo.264 is a piece of junk. It produces mosaics (macroblocking) at high bitrates as well as problems with "fuzziness" on the whole file. Up on the Elgato forums the devs will not acknowledge there is a problem and/or state it's a limit of the hardware even though other software companies using the T264 can get around it (i.e. MPEG Streamclip). I'm really disappointed in Elgato as a company and the Turbo.264 as a product.
 
just bought the turbo 264 today, and I'm currently encoding a movie now, and I can honestly say WOW! My powerbook would take 7hrs to burn a dvd using Handbrake, and with the Turbo 264 I can actually surf the web at the same time...
 
I'd just like to chime back in here to agree with the others and my initial findings.. it's a pointless purchase if you own an intel mac.. saves very little time and macroblocks like a mofo.

I was unaware the mpeg streamclip utilized it as an accelerator, and will give that a try, thanks!

Overall though.. not worth it unless you are on powerpc hardware.
 
ZML.com

If all you want is ipod version of the latest movies, then buy them for just $1.99 at ZML.com. Cheap, takes secs to download and already encoding for ipod. Saves tons of time.
 
just reviving an old thread here....Can anyone post their custom iphone settings used with a Turbo.264?

I'm trying to get the best optimized setting for my iphone.

thanks :)
 
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