[RckStr]

For those with older non hw accellerated macs, could this be an alternative? Sure, its more expensive, but you wouldnt have to bastardise your mac, and it might just be youre getting it for its intended purpose aswell.

Davilla, would you be so kind and take a look?

http://www.elgato.com/elgato/int/mainmen...t1.en.html

[Raider]

i believe that's for hardware encoding, not decoding video playback...

[davilla]

For those with older non hw accellerated macs, could this be an alternative? Sure, its more expensive, but you wouldnt have to bastardise your mac, and it might just be youre getting it for its intended purpose aswell.

Davilla, would you be so kind and take a look?

http://www.elgato.com/elgato/int/mainmen...t1.en.html

Looks like an Encoder, not a decoder. Even if it was a decoder, it's a USB interface. USB is way, way to slow to handle realtime decoding of video.

[tuckbodi]

The original Turbo264 was one of the worst purchases I ever made. It had all kinds of encoding issues (blockiness, audio issues, etc) and elgato, despite all the posts on their forums, turned a deaf ear. They wouldn't even take returns on the things. Not sure how the HD version is working as I've steered clear of those guys. And even if it did decode I'd steer clear of them.

[Neil]

Right, it is an encoder, not a decoder, otoh...

I have had nothing but good experiences with products I got from Elgato, including my original Turbo264. My primary Mac was still PPC until a few weeks ago, so I used the Turbo264 to convert around a hundred DVDs to iPhone format very quickly leaving the CPU free for other tasks. It was able to convert DVD chapter marks into the iTunes equivalent even when Handbrake couldn't. I know it had an easily worked around issue with files encoded in AppleTV format and I think some issue with 5.1 surround sound. But I think most users were happy with the device even though a number of people were dissatisfied. Sorry for continuing the tangential discussion.

[pmcd]

For those with older non hw accellerated macs, could this be an alternative? Sure, its more expensive, but you wouldnt have to bastardise your mac, and it might just be youre getting it for its intended purpose aswell.

Davilla, would you be so kind and take a look?

http://www.elgato.com/elgato/int/mainmen...t1.en.html

I use it with my Mac Mini. It's a very nice encoder with hardware assist. It basically doubles the encoding speed. When it first came out there were sync issues but those have been dealt with. They also have a really neat EyeTV HD recorder which uses component connection to record HD video with stereo audio.

philip

[RckStr]

Looks like an Encoder, not a decoder. Even if it was a decoder, it's a USB interface. USB is way, way to slow to handle realtime decoding of video.

Allright! Thx for checking it out.

[akelley]

Anyone know of a decent ENCODER for Windows? Elgato is only for Mac. I looked at badaboomit.com that uses CUDA (for those video cards that support it) which does speed up encode, but the result isn't very good (Handbrake alone is much better). So I'm looking for a hardware assisted H.264 encoder for Windows if anyone has any recommendations.