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Every review I have read of the Turbo Boost says it really is only faster with older slower processors. Sounds like that has not been your experience? Alot of the user reviews I have read complain about software bugginess and poor quality results in some cases. I've always been interested in the device but those things have kept me away.

The elgato Turbo.264 HD dongle is hardware encoder for MP4 encoding. Using it will cut your encoding time down drastically. I'm using 1.1.4 software but elgato products especially this dongle has its fair share of audio sync problems - I haven't tested the 1.1.4 extensively but I used the old 1.03 version and was all good.

It can encode up to 30Mb/s bitrate.
 
Every review I have read of the Turbo Boost says it really is only faster with older slower processors. Sounds like that has not been your experience? Alot of the user reviews I have read complain about software bugginess and poor quality results in some cases. I've always been interested in the device but those things have kept me away.

No, it's actually even better with a faster cpu. Using iMovie, I can export via quicktime using the elgato turbo.264 hd customized settings 1080p 30fps at a whopping 6 minutes vs. 13 minutes if using quicktime via cpu only.
 
Man, I can't wait! Your encoding times just sold me on the high end 15". Do I need a 15" screen? No, but I need the power.

It will be interesting once we get applications that support quick sync to see what kind of improvement comes over the encoding with just the CPU. I wonder if it can get close to the elGato?
 
Man, I can't wait! Your encoding times just sold me on the high end 15". Do I need a 15" screen? No, but I need the power.

It will be interesting once we get applications that support quick sync to see what kind of improvement comes over the encoding with just the CPU. I wonder if it can get close to the elGato?

the DVD to mp4 times are legit! In fact, my friends 27" imac i7 quad 2010 model is slower too but remember this is a freakin' laptop. I can finally stop yearning for a desktop!

I am awaiting my first thunderbolt device and I'm very sure it will be worth the wait since editing video using final cut studio on a laptop will be so awesome.
 
I've been able to convert a 90 minute 1080P MKV movie to MP4 (2 pass, turbo first pass) using Handbrake in about two hours on my i7 13". That is very fast for me. I also kept the 5.1 audio.
 
How much are you expecting the file size to be? I normally just encode 700MB (1CD or larger) allowing for streaming to my ps3, xbox360, and from my ipad using airvideo so file size to me isn't of great importance..I am after more bitrate for video

I usually get file sizes from 600MB to around 1GB when converting HD video. I'm not just looking for small file sizes, I'm also extremely picky with quality.
 
That would be MPEG2 encoding - which is a piece of cake!! I'll try to get a DVD burned to disk then encode it. For some reason, ripIt 1.5.4 can't rip any dvd I stick in the superdrive on this 2011 17"!

But for sure, you'd probably get so many fps encoding time it's crazy. On my friends 27" iMac late 2010 top of the line i7 Quad with 8GB ram, he gets about +/- 200fps on mpeg2 encoding using handbrake! this is with 2-pass encoding too!

I'm going to do a quickie sample now

Hey iPadThai,
Did you ever figure out the issue with not being able to rip from the internal superdrive on your 2011 MacBook?
 
Hey iPadThai,
Did you ever figure out the issue with not being able to rip from the internal superdrive on your 2011 MacBook?

I normally have a USB2 external drive (LG DVD drive) to rip from when I use my older C2D 17" mbp. With this new one, I just wanted to test out the DVD superdrive and somehow some of my retail DVD discs won't even rip. Pirates of the Caribbean would, however. I tried some other discs and some worked some didn't. My LG was flashed to a custom firmware which is 10x better than the stock superdrive. In fact, I don't know why the heck apple still puts in a DVD rom drive - why don't they do a combo DVD/HDD drive instead?!
 
I normally have a USB2 external drive (LG DVD drive) to rip from when I use my older C2D 17" mbp. With this new one, I just wanted to test out the DVD superdrive and somehow some of my retail DVD discs won't even rip. Pirates of the Caribbean would, however. I tried some other discs and some worked some didn't. My LG was flashed to a custom firmware which is 10x better than the stock superdrive. In fact, I don't know why the heck apple still puts in a DVD rom drive - why don't they do a combo DVD/HDD drive instead?!

I suggest trying downloading the latest RipIt beta and seeing if it improves anything. RipIt Beta Download Link
 
the DVD to mp4 times are legit! In fact, my friends 27" imac i7 quad 2010 model is slower too but remember this is a freakin' laptop. I can finally stop yearning for a desktop!

I am awaiting my first thunderbolt device and I'm very sure it will be worth the wait since editing video using final cut studio on a laptop will be so awesome.

*Sigh* If only my financial aid people weren't mildly retarded. My money should have been here the day before they were released. For now, I'll just revel in your, and other, posts.
 
Many thanks for sharing them pictures. Seeing pirates being ripped in 25 mins is crazy, mine can rip a 2h30m movie in about 2 hours, and its a struggle to use any other applications when it's being done!
Hope to see more tests soon :)
 
Can you tell us what the temperature is when encoding?

The fan kicks on loud. I don't have iStat to see temperatures but after 3 seconds, the fan dies down and you can still hear it though it is softer than my 2009 C2D 2.8!

Overall, I'm super pleased with this new laptop. In fact, I can transcode from .rmvb to .mp4 (MPEG4) in about 7 minutes - that's a 45 minute clip at 212MB to an .mp4 (MPEG4) roughly 1400kbps bitrate double the file size of original in less than 7 minutes.

I was just using MacX file converter which can accept .rmvb and can utilize 8 core encoding...but it does not max out all 8 virtual cores, however. Handbrake does fully max out all 8 virtual cores. And using MacX converter, I am only doing a single pass encoding.
 
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