Turbo.264 HD Review
High Definition video has pretty much reached the domestic market. The arrival of AVCHD has seen the firewire ports flounder on some Apple computers and SD card storage capacities boom with 16GB being the norm.
Also this year both Vimeo and YouTube rolled out their High Definition services and the affordability of HD cameras is meaning SD is becoming seconds class to its High Definition rival.
We recently reviewed the brilliant Panasonic HDC-SD100 (Review Link) offering at the higher end of the domestic market but HD doesn’t have to be expensive with a FlipVideo HD camera expected in the UK next month at just over £100.
High Definition video puts higher demand on our hardware and brings with it a different way to import and manage footage. Regular DigMo! readers will already know we love the standard Elgato Turbo.264 (Review Link) USB hardware encoder and we are excited to get our hands on the newly upgraded Elgato Turbo.264 HD.
If you have the Turbo.264 you will be pretty familiar with the software that comes with it. On the surface little has changed but behind the scenes the software offers a mass of hidden new and upgraded features. If you want to see photos of the device and packaging head over to the DigMo! Flickr account otherwise read on as we put the hardware through its paces.
I will start by looking at the software thats ships with the device and then test the performance of the hardware towards the end of the article..
Elgato Turbo.264 HD Software:
The main software interface hasn’t changed with the HD release. The dial on the top right of the software displays red on startup and turns to black (with the max dial) with the Turbo.264 is connected to a USB port on your Mac.
To convert a video, simply drag it into the ‘Drag video files here.’, select the format you want the video to use (see later) and click the start button.
If you connect an AVCHD camcorder to your Mac an additional button appears on the main window entitled ‘Add Camcorder’ (see the screenshot above). This is the point when updated software really offers a massive advantage. Importing AVCHD footage using iMovie and Final Cut although faster than traditional firewire video importing still takes a fair bit of time. The Turbo.264 software quickly lists and indexes the AVCHD footage with a first frame thumbnail :
As you will see in the screenshot above you have the option of either importing (and converting) the footage as a single movie or, if you pull the slider to the left as individual movies. In this example I have 33 clips on my SD card but this will obviously change as the amount of video on the card changes.
The ability to import multiple clips is very useful if you need to quickly turn around a video and only need a section of the footage recorded or alternatively, if you are like me and forget to delete previously imported footage from the camera before starting the next shoot.
Double click on a video clip to watch a preview,
Like Elgato’s EyeTv software the Turbo.264 software allows you to trim and edit footage before it is imported. Click the middle button to display in and out tabs on the video line. (Check out our tutorial on how this works in the EyeTV application).
In the reality of most domestic setups this level of editing is all most users need to remove ‘dud’ footage from clips. It is easy to quickly trim a video to the essential clip and click done to go back to the export options. In this case I have opted for exporting the 30 second clip at 1080p. This took around 1 min.
In this case I exported at 1080p but the software offers a great range of presets and also hosts the ability to customise these to your own particular requirements. The user has full control over the video and audio and there are even options for Dolby sound.
As well as local file formats the software also offers support for both the YouTube and YouTube HD video sharing services. I’d love to see support on application for the upcoming sharing site Vimeo but no doubt as more of use the service these will come in time.
Performance
Anyone who is thinking of buying the Elgato Turbo.264 HD is going to be primarily interested in performance. The great plus of this hardware is that it offers acceleration to not only the application that it ships with but other applications such as iMovie, Final Cut and Elgato’s own EyeTV software.
The Test:
I opted to export a 3 minute and 28 second clip from a TV programme I recorded on EyeTV recently. The first stage of the test was to export the clip in AppleTV format without the Turbo.264HD connected. I am using a standard 2.8GHZ 24″iMac.
The final time for export to AppleTV : 3 mins and 8 seconds. I then connected the Turbo.264 and re-ran the export. I felt if the Turbo.264 HD was able to convert the video in under 2 minutes it was a definite winner, the results were spectacular :
The Turbo.264 converted the same clip in well under my predicted two minutes and actually converted it in less of a third the time : 1 minute in total. I repeated both conversions twice with similar results.
I think this is particularly impressive. As most of my daily conversion isn’t actually HD and involves the EyeTV software the Turbo.264 accelerator offers a massive advantage to this particular work flow.
Conclusion
I really can’t be more positive about this device. Computing has become more and more media centric and the ability to quickly edit and convert video is now almost essential. If you own a TV device with the EyeTv 3 software then this device is verging on essential.
If you convert on a regular basis whether for video podcasts, family video or even professionally I would highly recommend the hardware acceleration this device offers. The fact I was able to export the same click in less than one third the time with the Turbo.264 makes it a complete no brainer for my set up. The only negative is that the increased resolution of HD seems to have brought with it an increase in price. The Turbo.264 costs £139.95 but it offers considerable advantage especially if you are an AVCHD camcorder owner ! Check out our easy to follow video tutorial on how to use the Turbo.264 HD with an AVCHD camcorder, click here.
DigMo! Rating : ★★★★★
Turbo 264 HD 1080p Video Encoder/Accelerator
Links: Elgato.com
DigMo,
Thanks for the review. I have a high-end Canon HF-11 AVCHD camcorder that I record at full-tilt 1080i (25 Mbps) with.
I am struggling with how to convert these .m2ts files it produces into something that is still 1080 but usable to others like friends & family members – in other words, converting to something like an MKV they could play back in VLC if they have a fast computer, or authoring to Blu-ray (I swear I’ll get a Blu-ray drive for my Mac someday) in the future.
Can you update this with a mention of what output format the “1080p HD” option uses???
Thanks in advance.
I demoed the output at 1080p and it was .mp4 format that played in both Quicktime and VLC.
Interesting. Thanks, DigMo.
Any chance you could open the output file in MediaInfo and report the results back?
I’m also keenly interested to know how the audio fares – does it do pass-through mode, for example? My Canon records in AC3 already. If the output file’s audio is automatically transcoded into, say, AAC instead of AC3, I’m not going to be as happy a camper.
Video is ID : 1, Format : AVC, Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec, Format profile : Main@L4.0 audio is AAC
Oh, a quick P.S. – assuming you meant “AAC”, what does MediaInfo say for “Number of Audio Channels” in the “Audio Stream” section? (I’m wondering if it can take 5.1 AC3 as input and maintain 5.1 in the output, even if it forces a transcode to AAC)
OK, enough questions – thanks again for the review, very helpful!
@Riot Nrrrd It can support dolby output The file I exported was 2 channel in the end but I am not sure if the audio was recorded 5.1 The support does say : Audio: AAC-LC, stereo, 160 Kbps, 48 kHz. When exporting to Apple TV format, for sources that contain Dolby Digital™ AC-3 audio, the digital audio will be passed through into the resulting file.
a few key flaws have been I overlooked in the turbo264 products:
* no drivers for ppc – which needs the boost more than mactel does …
and if bandwidth is a limiting factor then fw800 should gave been considered instead of USB!
* totally incomplete support for subs, dubs, CC, timecode, karaoke, etc etc – so most of the source data is disguarded!
* subs are not stored on separate track: they are burned into the main video track.
* subs are processed as raw raster files, not as propet ’soft’ vector files (ie real text derived from OCR).
* elgato refuses to work with the lib264 community – so no drivers for VLC or for handbrake
* audio files are not supported as an input source – so no mass conversions of your mp3 (or windows media) library is possible.
* real video is not a supprted input format – so legacy libraries can’t be transcoded (and it is also unclear if elgato has the ability to demux legacy mpeg1 files).
zahadum: Your assertion that we’re not trying to work with the lib264 community on getting Turbo support in other apps is completely untrue.
I and several of my colleagues have tried repeatedly on Forums and IRC channels and via e-mail to get ahold of the Handbrake guys to get directions on how to integrate into their app. When we got answers at all, they were that they were not interested at all, as they considered Turbo to be of bad quality.
If anyone knows a venue of contact, I’d be interested in learning about it. We’ve tried, but it’s an impenetrable wall.
This forum response would indicate otherwise, and frankly, they have less of a reason to be uncooperative than a large company…..
http://forum.handbrake.fr/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10327
PS – I hope there is just a communications problem here. We are really interested in getting Turbo supported by more apps.
Turbo.264 and Turbo.264 HD even come with a framework that can be used by any application to make using it through QuickTime easier. Cocoa sample code is available on request.
How is the quality compared to a two pass encode in Handbrake? The previous version of this device did not produce great looking videos IMHO. I am curious if they have improved this.
-kpluck
Both Turbo.264 and Turbo.264 HD install a QuickTime component (Elgato Turbo.component) that any application is free to use. That component is how you integrate Turbo.264 HD into your application. VLC, Handbrake, or any other OS X application can have full access to that component, if they want it – no charge or licensing fee. They don’t even have to contact Elgato. That Turbo.264 HD component now includes access to all custom-made presets.
MPEG-1 works fine with these products. It’s a video encoder, so audio only files aren’t part of the design. If Turbo.264 HD users want specific subtitle support, that they can’t find in Turbo-enabled applications like RoadMovie or Submerge, then Elgato takes feature requests – many more features are being prepared.
Other questions can be posed at http://forums.elgato.com.
Thanks to those from Elgato who posted. I’d be excited to see handbrake support. The thing with handbrake is there are so many developers involved. If any of the handbrake team are reading this please get in contact with Elgato (above) and make this happen ?
I’ve been using the original Turbo.264 for over a year now and love it! I mainly use it for exporting tv shows I record using my TVMicro and EyeTV software. Even on my iMacCoreDuo 1.83 it speeds the encoding up by 4-5x. A real time saver! I just started saving my pennies for the new TurboHD.
lenn
To Nick or Uli – can you answer my question above? If the input file(s) have AC3 5.1 audio, does the Turbo.264 just pass it through untouched? DigMo’s post implies it is converted to AAC.
Also, it would be nice to see support for MKV as an output container format along with VC-1/MP4.
Does anyone know if it can work with DVR recorded material using apps like Firerecord or the Xcode firewire recording programs ? These apps take shows that are recorded from your cable DVR and save them to your mac, producing files in the .m2t format which I usually have to encode and edit using MPEG streamclip.app It’s very tedious to zapp out the commercials and I’ve long been looking for a better and faster way. Can the elgato device work with these mpeg-2 transport type files? They usually have AC3 audio.
Elgato, when converting to AppleTV with a AC3-5.1 source sound-track, does it produce dual AAC 2.0 + AC3-passthru output soundtracks? This is now an enforced requirement (previously only recommended) for AppleTV-compatible video files containing AC3(passthru) soundtracks since AppleTV v2.2 (or v2.3, can’t remember which).
P.S. I really appreciate Elgato engaging with questions at this level, it’s refreshing and reassuring!
Another happy Turbo.264 HD user here who’s own experience matches that of the reviewer.
And again, very happy to see Elgato engaging those replying to this review.
Like with the original Turbo.264, Turbo.264 HD exports using the Apple TV preset will include AC3, if the original file includes AC3.
Normal MPEG-2 Transport Stream files should be read by Turbo.264 HD without problem.
Can confirm no problem with MPEG-2 transport streams here (HDV exports).
excellent
i ordered my eyeTV Diversity w/ eyeTV v3 + IceTV EPG subscription from IceTV.com.au last night.
now i can go hunting a good price on the turbo264HD :p
thanks heaps to DigMo & Elgato for an excellent eye-to-eye exchange here (pardon the pun
.
@Nick Freeman:
Thanks for answering techydude’s question, but what about mine?
“If the input file(s) have AC3 5.1 audio, does the Turbo.264 just pass it through untouched? DigMo’s post implies it is converted to AAC.
Also, it would be nice to see support for MKV as an output container format along with VC-1/MP4.”
You implied that converting to AppleTV keeps 5.1 AC3 audio intact; is that true in general? (I don’t have an AppleTV – would prefer to convert to VC-1/MP4 or, more preferably, MKV)
@Riot,
i might be able to partially help you there.
a conversion to h264 by default will have an AAC2.0 output. from what i gather that’s Apple’s preferred flavour of h264.
but if the source was AC3 ‘Dolby Digital’ encoded (5.1 or even 2.0) that will be included as a secondary track too, and if present, played in preference to the AAC (on an AppleTV. Quicktime on a full Mac appears to behave differently, will still only play the AAC2.0 – anyone know why?).
my question stemmed from months of confusion/frustration after Apple changed the way AppleTV plays back files with only AC3 tracks. previously it would, despite ther ‘recommendation’ that its primary soundtrack be AAC. then a firmware update 6 months ago enforced the need for AAC, with AC3 as an option if present alongside AAC. AC3-only files will play silently
.