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Apple Mac iMovie Final Cut Elgato Turbo H.264 Export Software and Hardware Rendering Accelerator for Faster Video Exporting

Technology > Apple | Video

Summary. The Elgato Turbo H.264 video rendering acceleration system from Elgato is an excellent way to save yourself considerable time when exporting video projects.

Below are some real world screen shots that illustrate the performance gains and time saved by using the Elgato Turbo H.264 hardware acceleration solution.

Some of the examples provided below are based on using faster Apple computers. Your actual results will be different depending on the speed of the computer you use.

This first example is with a slower computer. The specifications are shown here.

Below you can see that a 15 minute video will take about 15 minutes to export when using the Elgato Turbo H.264 hardware and software solution.

The same 15 minute video is estimated to take about four hours without the Elgato Turbo H.264 hardware and software solution.

Below is a sample using an Apple Mac Pro computer with multiple dual core processors with the specifications indicated here.

Using the Elgato Turbo H.264 device, the export time for this 1 hour 17 minute project is about 20 minutes. (click to enlarge)

Without the Elgato Turbo H.264 device, the export time for this 1 hour 17 minute project
is about three hours. (click to enlarge)

The optimal custom export settings for the Elgato H.264 export for most uses are shown below.

Below is an example using the Elgato Turbo H.264 HD hardware and accompanying software on an Apple iMac with an Intel Core i7 Quad Core processor. With the Apple Activity Monitor, it is possible to view how well distributed the processing is across all four cores (and all eight available threads). The distribution is quite effective, resulting in 255 frames per second. Standard playback speed is 30 frames per second, so this one hour 40 minute video will take about 12 minutes to convert and export.

By Greg Johnson

Greg Johnson is a freelance writer and tech consultant in Iowa City. He is also the founder and Director of the ResourcesForLife.com website. Learn more at AboutGregJohnson.com