Looking for people who use hardware encode accelerators (HEA) on FCS and Vegas/Premiere. How big a timesaver is it really? Is the quality off a HEA compared to software encode?

Back in the old days, A number of videocard makers had Mpeg2 encode aceleration -- we used those alot at Charter Cable. Are there video cards anymore that have this feature for MP4?

I use a Matrox CompressHD to make H264 encodes for BluRay, which gives me much faster encodes at a minor quality hit, so I would only use it for work-in-progress versions. For final output I still use Mainconcept in CS5 for best quality, but it takes many times longer to encode.

I also have used Elemental Encoder for CS4, which accelerates both MPEG2 and H264 encodes. One issue is that the MPEG2 DVD encodes at 24p are incompatible with Encore, while the PAL and NTSC ones are fine. The H264 encodes are not quite as accelerated as CompressHD, but may be slightly higher quality, and they also offer some nice surround encoding options with their exporter. The primary issue is that it is CS4 only, which is far inferior to CS5 speed and stability wise.

I hope that helps.

I use tmpgenc 4.0 together with the spursengine plugin and a WinFast PxVC1100 card, gives me excellent image quality and fast rendertimes, not that much faster then my I7 950 for plain dvd renders but much faster for blu-ray compatible files. There is a plugin for premiere available as well to use the winfast card but unfortunately its not sold seperately but only in combination with the card.

Elgato Turbo h.264 HD works decently. Similar results to the Matrox Compress HD with good savings on time, but for a trade-off of quality (Matrox is better quality). I use mine for client test videos with FCP and Compressor for final output, taking much longer. Good price for use on test videos.

Elgato Turbo h.264 HD works decently.

I have the original, non-HD Turbo. Speed & quality are good, especially considering the low price. It's very easy to use, & you can use it in conjunction with Toast and Compressor. I'm planning on upgrading to the newer, HD version soon so that I can use it to encode for Blu-Ray.