turbo.264

[mhar4]

So I got one of the Elgato Turbo.264 hardware encoders, and it's reasonably neat. It is very fast using the included software, real-time or close to on my hopeless G4 Mac Mini (as against maybe 2fps with a software encoder) doing 640x480 1500kbps encodes, or around 20fps doing 784x440. What I have noticed, though, is that the included software has terrible image processing, especially scaling, which really harms the results. I have tried the beta version of MPEG Streamclip which supports it, and the results are much better at the same bitrate, but the encodes are much slower, maybe 8fps.

There is a lot of scope for improvement, and a lot has already been done, so hopefully these issues will be resolved over time.

[Frobozz]

Quality encoding vs speed. Sounds familiar.

Did you also see that Popcorn 3 uses the Turbo.264?

[AntnyMD]

I dont know if you know, but there has been an update to the 264 software, and there are tweaking options!

[mhar4]

Didn't know about Popcorn 3.

Yes, I am using the current update. The encoding options are great but it's the image processing that is the issue. I really hope they improve it.

[AntnyMD]

I think I agree. I did an upsize of Shaun of the Dead, and it looked bad on an HDTV. I'll stick to Apple's preferred resolutions so I can play them on iPod, aTV and Archos.