That's all well and good, but...
I really hate to poo-poo this product, but I'm thinking, is there any point for Intel Mac owners? I'm not overly impressed with the speed improvements it mentions. I convert each episodes of widescreen programmes to H.264 at 768x576 so it works on my widescreen TV. For a 45-ish minute episode, VisualHub will churn it out in H.264 in approximately 65 minutes. Also, from the sounds of this review, is that I wouldn't be able to do that resolution conversion with the Elgato, since it only has predefined sizes (unless I'm wrong). It also produces slightly darker results than the original, which bugs me because I'd then want to colour-correct them too.
Admittedly, on my MacBook the Elgato would save on the processor and fans going into overdrive so if anything it would help save my laptop... However on a Intel Mac Mini or iMac the speed of the processor is just as good, if not better, and doesn't have the huge fan/overheat problem of the MacBook (I don't think?) so leaving it for all that time converting video files shouldn't really be much of an issue. I also have an issue with the whole USB2.0 thing, surely it's wasting a heap of processor cycles transferring data in a pants way between the computer and the bus? If they're going for a Mac-only product, surely Firewire would have been better?
To be honest, if you have a 2GHz Core 2 Duo then I can't see the point. Even on my Core Duo it would only save me a few minutes. I'd be interested when there's possibly a next generation that can do it at double real-time or thereabouts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
