TURBO 264HD Software Upgrade 1.0.1 Now Available

Well Elgato seem on the ball with the Turbo 264HD. The first update to the software is out and it contains some interesting upgrades and fixes.

I'm going to go and experiment with that MKV support now....

Here are the release notes...

What's new in Turbo.264 HD 1.0.1?

MKV Support

Turbo HD now supports MKV files with the following audio and video formats, without the need for additional QuickTime components to be installed:

Video:  H.264, MPEG-4, MPEG-2 and MPEG-1

Audio:  AC-3, MPEG-2 and MPEG-1

For MKV files with other audio and video formats, Turbo can still convert the files, but additional QuickTime components are required to decode the files.

Inline Editing of File Names

Titles can now be edited in Turbo HD.  Simply click the title of the video in the Turbo HD window to edit its name.  

The edited names are also used as chapter names when exporting multiple clips as a single file:

Files can also be reordered by selecting the file and dragging it to the desired location within the Turbo HD application window.

Bug Fixes

A USB connectivity problem while encoding has been resolved.

Fixed a problem that caused 16:9 exports from iMovie '09 to have a 4:3 aspect ratio.

Fixed a problem where some MPEG files over 100MB could not be added to the Turbo HD application.

Known Issues

Exports from iMovie ’09 with titles have artifacts.

Direct exports from iMovie’09 are currently not accelerated. To export an iMovie '09 project, please add the iMovie Event directly to the Turbo HD application.

UPDATE -  Here's my impressions so far.

It seems quite a bit quicker at loading in the clips to be converted, and overall conversion seems a touch snappier (but this might just be my imagination) - but definitely more stable.

I've tried converting a couple of MKV x264 movies and can confirm that this works well. If the file has DTS sound then the video converts but the sound is be missing, however if the MKV file has an AC3/DD5.1 soundtrack then it works fine.

So if, (for example) you downloaded an HD film in X264 format and wanted to play it on your TV rather than your computer, as long as it was had an AC3/Dolby Digital soundtrack you could convert it using the Turbo 264HD to a (stereo) MP4 file, put it on a USB memory stick and play it using a PS3 or 360 (both tested and confirmed). Conversion speed for me was about 25% better than realtime on the short clips I tried (e.g. 1.5 mins converted in just over 1 min).

Comments

[waggoner]

sounds great but...a citation of specs i beleive apple store suggests that it accepts 1080p then in compression also converts to 720p...in casual view both look pretty sharp...are facile consumer users simply accepting 720p as true HD?

[Techmoan]

I edit down to 720p as my camera is 1080i its a choice of either upscaling it to 1080p or downscaling it to 720p, there isn't a discernible difference between the two.

The 720p videos play smoother on a wider range of equipment I own or when I stream it around the house.

Incidentally I've now gone back to editing in AIC then using the Turbo264HD for the final output conversion. This is because Elgato never fixed the problem of the conversion failing if you import video as mp4 through the Turbo264 then after editing try to output to mp4 again.