Turbo.264 update adds direct YouTube upload

Though the update was released a week and a half ago, Elgato waited until now to announce the release of Turbo.264 1.3, an update to the software that drives its video coprocessor. The free update is available for download from Elgato’s Web site now.

Turbo.264 is a USB-based device that looks like a thumbdrive. With the Turbo.264 software installed, it can help ease your Mac’s burden of converting video to H.264 format, and can, depending on your Mac’s configuration, speed up the process too.

New to the 1.3 release is the ability to directly upload videos that are compatible with YouTube, the popular video-sharing service. Support for DVD chapter markers has been added as well, so you can now navigate converted content by chapter on an iPod, iPhone or Apple TV.

Apple TV users can watch video encoded with multi-channel Dolby Digital audio, as well. And Turbo.264 can now be used in conjunction with QuickTime Broadcaster, as well — Elgato says that with Turbo.264 installed, the CPU load is always much less than when using software compression, and the quality is 100 percent with no dropped frames.