Digital Home Thoughts: Encoding in the Fast Lane: The El Gato Turbo.264 Reviewed

The UI for the included software appears below.


Figure 1: The UI for the included software is very simple and uncluttered.

Once the video is up on the screen, you can make any changes to your conversion preferences. The output type will always be H.264, but you do have the option of selecting other conversion profiles. In the newest version of the software, the biggest omission (the ability to add custom profiles) is now fixed, although if you're doing your conversions in QuickTime and not the included app, you can only use the included profiles.


Figure 2: The software includes profiles for the iPhone, iPod, and PSP, as well as the Apple TV.

To create a custom profile, you select one of the included profiles to base it on, and click the + sign under the list. That will create a new profile with the same settings that you can then tweak to your heart's content. I often find myself using it to convert my videos for Vimeo, so I created a few custom profiles for my Vimeo files.