Search Results for 'QuickTime Player Pro'

More Quick and Easy Methods for Video on Your iPhone, Apple TV or New iPod

Published by Kevin Edwards September 12th, 2007 in Apple Voices and Info. 3 Comments

Our recent video showing a quick and easy video for your iPhone, Apple TV or new iPod required hardware and resulted in some inquiries from viewers for other methods of how to get video from cameras, DVDs, TiVo, downloads or other sources into the proper QuickTime or MPEG-4 file format specs required for transfer via iTunes.

Those really interested in the detailed video specifications should look on Apple’s site:
iPod Classic video specs
iPhone video specs
iPod nano video specs
Apple TV video specs

To make video transfer via iTunes and simple and easy as possible, let me ignore the details of Apple’s specs and simply make a list of the hardware and software solutions that allow video to be converted and transferred with the least amount of knowledge or learning curve possible. Please note that this is not an exhaustive list, but rather a quick guide to some of the best solutions, not just in ease of learning and use, but additional features you may want to take advantage of once you graduate in your learning.

Here’s our top picks for software that make converting video for the iPhone, Apple TV or iPod quick and easy:

Best hardward/software (fastest) for converting downloaded video or video from a camera:
1) Turbo.264 from Elgato - $90

Best software for converting downloaded video or video from a camera:
2) VisualHub - $23.32

Best software for converting commercial DVDs that you own:
3) HandBrake - Free!

Best software for converting DVDs you made yourself (from iDVD, DVD Studio Pro, etc…):
4) Roxio Popcorn - $49.99

Best software for converting shows from TiVo:
Roxio Popcorn - $49.99

While you could use QuickTime Player Pro, or even iMovie to create/convert video your video, you’ll find tremendous advantages in the above hardware and software in terms of speed, ease, and additional features.

We hope to post tutorials and reviews of these individual products soon. Please come back.

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How to: Quick and Easy Video for the iPhone, Apple TV and new iPods

Published by Kevin Edwards September 5th, 2007 in Apple Voices and Reviews. 5 Comments




Ripping DVDs, transferring video from cameras, or converting downloaded videos from various sources for Apple products can be a difficult and time consuming process. Now with a software update for the Turbo.264 hardware-based video encoder from Elgato Systems, Macintosh users now have a definitive best and fastest way to encode video for all of Apple’s latest products.

This small device simply plugs into any Intel or PowerPC based Mac with a USB port (USB 2 is highly recommended). All of the heavy processing normally done by your computer is offloaded onto the Turbo.264 encoder, resulting in much faster encoding and freeing up your Mac for other tasks.

The older and slower your Mac, the more significant the speed increase will be with this device. We found the Turbo.264 encoded video up to 20 times faster on a G4, but even on higher end Intel based Macs, encoding times were drastically improved with the Turbo.264.

The Elgato Turbo.264 goes for about $90 on Amazon.com, making it a very inexpensive way to bring new life to an old Mac as a video encoding workstation.

The new software for the Turbo.264 couldn’t be any easier to use. As with the earlier software, it allows for batch processing, but more importantly, it provides support for custom data rates and other settings. It also includes simple selections for encoding video optimized for the Apple TV, iPhone, iPods, or the recently announced iPod Touch, iPod Classic and iPod Nano (also known as the iPod Nano Fatty.

While the included software is easy to use, the Turbo.264 comes with plug-ins for QuickTime that allow it to work with any application that uses QuickTime for export. This includes Final Cut Express, Final Cut Pro, iMovie (including both HD and ‘08) and third party video apps such as Roxio Popcorn.

For an alternative to the Turbo.264 from Elgato, consider the VideoExpress from Miglia. The Miglia compares very well in terms of hardware and performance, but we find the software for the Turbo.264 to be much better due to the ability to easily customize the settings.

See also:
More Quick and Easy Methods for Video on Your iPhone, Apple TV or New iPod

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