This article is more than 1 year old

Elgato Turbo.264 H.264 encoder

Vroom, vroom

The figures speak for themselves: Turbo.264 is way faster than the host Mac. While the unaided MPEG Streamclip took just short of 23 minutes to encode the six-minute clip, Turbo.264 did it in just under seven minutes, less than a third of the time.

H.264 encoding: CPU vs Turbo.264
Elgato Turbo.264 DV-to-H.264 performance
Shorter bars are better

You can see from the image results Turbo.264 produces a slightly darker, higher contrast image than the original, but watching the results playing back - as opposed to squinting at single frames - is no different from viewing the original. Turbo.264's output might not pass pro video muster, but it's unquestionable fine for iPod, PSP, Apple TV or computer playback.

Video image samples

Original DV frame
Original DV frame
Click for full-size image

Turbo.264 encoding - Apple TV setting
Turbo.264 encoding - Apple TV setting
Click for full-size image

CPU encoding - Apple TV-like setting
MPEG Streamcast encoding - CPU only
Click for full-size image

Images courtesy BBC/Aardman

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