Elgato Systems today announced a hardware encoder in USB Stick format that rapidly converts video files to the high quality H.264 (MP4) format for iPod, Apple TV, and Sony PSP. Turbo.264 accelerates exports by a factor of four on an Intel Core 2 Duo up to a factor of 10 on a Power PC G4. The rate of acceleration depends on the Mac processor type. In addition, Turbo.264 offloads the computationally intensive software conversion of video files away from your Macintosh, leaving it free for other tasks -– a virtual co-processor for the Mac. Turbo.264 supports all Macs with USB 2.0. Turbo.264 is priced at US$99.95 and includes the USB 2.0 Hardware Encoder, the Turbo.264 software on CD-ROM, a user’s guide on CD-ROM, a quick start guide as well as a USB extension cable.