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Provides: External video processing/formatting
Developer: Elgato
Minimum Requirements: Intel Core processor, 512MB of RAM, USB 2.0 port, Mac OS X v10.5.6, QuickTime 7.6
Price: $149.99
Availability: Now

Elgato is well known for their superb EyeTV software and hardware that goes along with it. Recording TV is what they do best, but it’s not all they do; Elgato also makes a great product called the Turbo.264. It’s a USB dongle that supercharges your Mac’s ability to process video.

The Turbo.264 is a lot like a wood chipper for your video. You throw in wood, which is great by itself, but out the other side comes wood chips, which are useful. I know we’re talking about video here, not wood, but the analogy applies nicely.

The Turbo.264 plugs right into any of your quickly disappearing USB ports. It comes with an extension cable in case you’re worried about the device taking up more than its fair share of space. Other than the extension cable, there aren’t really any extra accessories, not that you’d need any. 

Fantastic, but what does it actually do? The Turbo.264 eats video for breakfast, and throws up compressed video just as soon as you look away. You know, to keep its dongle-like figure (we do not endorse bulimia). Seriously though, it’s made to compress video, which is why it kills just about anything else in a speed test.

So how does it perform?  I tested the device on a brand new Mac Mini, but I still I don’t think you’ll be surprised to hear who won in a video compression race.  Hit me with some numbers!

The file I tested was a 27 minute long HD quality recording from EyeTV.  Actually, it was the interesting part of Thunder over Louisville, if you are familiar or interested to know.  I chose to convert this video to the standard Apple TV preset by hitting the corresponding button from within EyeTV.  The Mac Mini by itself took 1:16:30 to export this video.  The Turbo.264 HD took 0:32:19.  That’s right, less than half the time the Mac Mini took.  Let me just point out that this isn’t the slowest Mac Mini.  It’s a brand new 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM.

Okay, so this thing really kills the Mac Mini’s ability to process video, but do you care?  That depends on how much video you process.  If you are using your EyeTV like a crazy man, and export all of your videos to watch on your iPod, then this could really save you some time.  Then again, you might just run all of your video compression during the night.  But you can use this to convert your home videos as well.  In fact, you can drop just about any video into the Turbo.264 app and have it do its thing.  So, even if you don’t have an EyeTV that never cools down, the Turbo.264 might still be worth your money to speed along the processing involved with saving memories shot with your camcorder.

But really, $150 is a lot of money.  It’s a great product, but let’s be honest, unless your EyeTV Hybrid never cools down, or you’re processing video from your camcorder just as fast as you can shoot it, you probably can’t justify it. And that’s fine, because Elgato already knows this. But when you’re ready to cut down conversion time, Elgato has an amazing product for you.