AT&T USBConnect Mercury – wireless cellular modem

Product summary

The good: The AT&T USBConnect Mercury is easy to use, and offers expandable memory. You can also get the cellular modem for free after rebates.

The bad: The SIM card and microSD expansion slots are in an inconvenient location. The modem doesn’t offer GPS capabilities. AT&T’s 3G coverage was spotty and the carrier charges higher overage fees than the competitors.

The bottom line: While the AT&T USBConnect Mercury is simple to use and can be had for free, it simply doesn’t offer the reliable coverage and faster speeds of the competition.

Price range: $99.99 check prices

• Reviewed by:
  Bonnie Cha
• Reviewed on: 07/31/2009

Just like the T-Mobile WebConnect USB, the Verizon Wireless USB760, and the Sierra Wireless 598U for Sprint, the AT&T USBConnect Mercury offers Internet connectivity on the go via cellular or Wi-Fi connection. Compact and simple, the portable modem is great for anyone who works on the road but, we’d recommend getting one of the aforementioned products before the USBConnect Mercury. Coverage could be spotty at times and download and upload speeds were often slow, which made it quite frustrating to use and not even worth the free price tag (with a two-year contract and after rebates). Also, like the other adapters, the AT&T USBConnect Mercury requires a data plan–$60 per month for 5GB of data–but be aware that AT&T charges $0.49 per MB for overage fees, which is considerably more than T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon.

Manufactured by Sierra Wireless, the AT&T USBConnect Mercury measures 2.6 inches tall by 1 inch wide by 0.7 inch deep and weighs just 1.2 ounces. To help you keep track of the little guy, AT&T ships the portable modem with a carrying strap that you can attach to the removable cap, which protects the USB connector, and then clip onto your body or bag. There’s an external antenna jack on the right side of the device, and on front, you’ll find two LEDs: the left one stays a solid blue when powered on and the right blinks or remains a solid orange or blue depending on network activity.

Like the others, the USBConnect Mercury is a plug-and-play solution that you can connect to your laptop just like a flash drive. In fact, the modem has a built-in microSD expansion slot so it can double as a storage device; AT&T has tested with up to 4GB cards but, according to Sierra Wireless, it can support up to 32GB. However, we weren’t so fond of the location of the expansion slot or the SIM card slot. Both sit right above the USB connector so it’s difficult to insert and remove either card just by hand. We much prefer the other carrier’s modem designs, which have the expansion slot located either on the side or bottom.

When you first connect the USBConnect Mercury to your laptop (compatible with machines running Windows Vista, XP and 2000; Mac OS 10.4.11 or later), it will automatically launch and install the necessary drivers and software to your computer. While there’s very little action required by the user, the installation process does take a while; in fact, AT&T notes in its documentation that it takes about 10 minutes.

Once installed and after restarting your computer, you should find the AT&T Communication Manager on your desktop. There you can connect to AT&T’s network or any available Wi-Fi networks. Like the T-Mobile WebConnect and Verizon Wireless USB760, you can also use the software to send, receive, and manage text messages with a cellular connection. The software interface is dead simple with two main tabs GSM or Wi-Fi. There are also options to manage your connections, set up a VPN, run diagnostics, and more. Unfortunately, the modem does not offer integrated GPS like the Sierra Wireless 598U.

The AT&T USBConnect Mercury supports the carrier’s EDGE (850/900/1,800/1,900MHz) and HSDPA (850/1,900/2,100MHz) networks; AT&T claims to have the fastest 3G network and says its typical download speeds range between 700Kbps and 1.7Mbps and upload speeds in the 500Kbps to 1.2Mbps range. However, when compared with the competing carriers’ offerings, we found the USBConnect Mercury to be the most frustrating to use because of the inconsistent coverage and pokey speeds.

We tested the modem on our Lenovo ThinkPad T61 throughout San Francisco, and the 3G coverage was really spotty and it wasn’t uncommon to have six bars of coverage one minute and then down to one or two bars the next. As we’ve done with other cellular modems, we ran tests using Speedtest.net and the USBConnect Mercury offered an average of 1.24Mbps for download speeds but a lowly 320Kbps for uploads. Perhaps more telling, with a signal strength of -70dbm, it took 2 minutes and 28 seconds for CNET’s site to fully load while CNN.com took 1 minute 30 seconds, ESPN.com 1 minute 40 seconds, and the NYTimes.com 1 minute 31 seconds. The T-Mobile WebConnect, Verizon Wireless USB760, and Sierra Wireless 598U for Sprint loaded all the same sites in 30 seconds or less. After having experienced better, we just can’t see a reason to choose the USBConnect Mercury over the others.

USB sticks replace old-school VHS tapes

Simple storage method evokes TV taping of the past

It might sound a touch Luddite, but a new digital video recorder from the UK that records to USB memory sticks could just be a deal-breaker for millions still stuck in old ruts.

The GiGo DV-DTR1 Digital Freeview recorder from Bedford-based Digital Vision is a standard digibox with a single tuner for free-to-air digital broadcasts.

EPG too

However, instead of packing an internal hard drive it can output recordings onto any external USB storage device. It can schedule these and pull data from the standard electronic programme guides.

Given that Digital Vision’s advertising shows USB sticks with paper labels indicating their content, it’s a safe bet to assume the machine will appeal to anyone used to VHS recording habits. A 2GB stick will hold about an hour of MPEG-2 TV recordings.

Get it at Tesco

So far, we don’t know much beyond the scant details on the under-construction website, although sources say Tesco will be selling the DTR1 for £70 in September.

Via Everything USB

USB sticks replace old-school VHS tapes

Simple storage method evokes TV taping of the past

It might sound a touch Luddite, but a new digital video recorder from the UK that records to USB memory sticks could just be a deal-breaker for millions still stuck in old ruts.

The GiGo DV-DTR1 Digital Freeview recorder from Bedford-based Digital Vision is a standard digibox with a single tuner for free-to-air digital broadcasts.

EPG too

However, instead of packing an internal hard drive it can output recordings onto any external USB storage device. It can schedule these and pull data from the standard electronic programme guides.

Given that Digital Vision’s advertising shows USB sticks with paper labels indicating their content, it’s a safe bet to assume the machine will appeal to anyone used to VHS recording habits. A 2GB stick will hold about an hour of MPEG-2 TV recordings.

Get it at Tesco

So far, we don’t know much beyond the scant details on the under-construction website, although sources say Tesco will be selling the DTR1 for £70 in September.

Via Everything USB

Cisco Linksys Media Hub NMH405 review

A home media hub that’s slightly limited on playback options

The Media Hub is a network hard drive (NAS) that can be used to store then remotely access your multimedia collection from elsewhere in the home or via the internet.

Our test model comes with a 500GB hard disc (a 1TB version is available) accompanied by a separate bay for adding an additional drive of your own.

Its home cinema looks belie the fact that there are no connections for plugging it into your TV set. File transfer is achieved via Ethernet, using plug-in external USB drives attached to ports at the front or rear or memory cards inserted into the multi-format 6-in-2 card reader (from a digital camera, perhaps).

The quickest (if not slickest) method, however, is to transfer them directly to the drive from a computer via USB. The hub will work in conjunction with uPnP and DNLA-certified devices and can act as an FTP and iTunes server.

Contents are accessed from your computer using a slick Apple-style web browser interface requiring Internet Explorer or Firefox. Here you can play back music, video and photo files with playlist and slideshow options, sort them (including by A-Z) and search by album, artist name, song and date. The list of file formats supported covers most bases including the .mov and .aac files beloved of Apple fans, but not the often-used-for-HD, MKV, which would have been nice.

When streaming locally via Ethernet, music and photo playback was handled very smoothly while standard-definition video in Xvid and DivX took just a few seconds to load, looking and sounding as good as the source. But the Hub struggled with our MP4 HD files, which took a while to load (something the software warns about) and when they did suffered from jerky playback and couldn’t be viewed in full-screen on our HD-ready laptop.

All of this also applies to remote streaming (despite our 50Mbit cable connection) and viewing files from our PlayStation 3, though to the Hub’s credit the console was able to recognise its presence straight away.

Stripped of its fancy stylings, £300 seems a big ask for what is foremost a network hard disc rather than a dedicated media streamer. Still, it’s worth considering if you want remote backup of and access to your media and aren’t too fussed about hi-def reliability, perhaps.

(Reviewed by Grant Rennell – What Satellite & Digital TV Issue 277)

OCZ Throttle eSATA Flash Drive 32GB Review

Nowadays, it’s not uncommon to have an eight, 16, or even 32GB memory stick that you take everywhere with you so that your entire music collection, many of your pictures and a fair selection of videos, work files, etc are close at hand. However, when it comes to moving your files around, copying gigabytes of data over a USB connection can take a long time. Enter, then, the OCZ Throttle.

While it may look like any other USB memory stick, the Throttle has an eSATA connector, allowing for faster transfers to and from the stick. How much faster? Well, the maximum data rate of USB is theoretically 60MB/s but in most practical instances you seldom get much over 30MB/s and more often it will be around 25MB/s. In contrast, OCZ claims the Throttle can be read from at up 90MB/s and written to at 30MB/s. Okay, so the write performance may not be amazing but the increase in read performance is enough to colour us very interested.

The stick comes in a modest little cardboard box along with a USB-to-miniUSB cable and that’s it. Given it’s essentially just a memory stick, this is hardly surprising or disappointing though. The miniUSB cable is used to provide power to the drive when it’s connected to a non-powered eSATA port and also for connecting the drive as a normal USB 2.0 drive for those situations where no eSATA port is available.

The need for this cable does highlight one of the Throttle’s problems. Namely, it’s somewhat annoying to have to carry around an extra cable with the drive, in case either of the above scenarios arises. There’s no particularly easy answer to this problem, except to have some sort of integrated USB cable like the Lenovo ThinkPad portable hard drive but this would add to the overall bulk considerably. It’s something we’d like to see OCZ experiment with, though.

Another issue with this drive is its bulk (80mm x 20mm x 10mm) and in particular its width at its plug-end (18mm x 10mm). This can make it difficult to fit in alongside other peripherals that tend to populate the back panel of a computer. Further concern comes from the cap that covers the eSATA port as it’s untethered (and can’t be clipped onto the back) so will no doubt end up the same way 90 per cent of USB stick caps do – lost or discarded. One final point – more of an observation than a problem – is the drives lack of ruggedisation; it probably won’t handle exposure to water or the soul of a size 12 boot, too well. All told, there are certainly some design points that OCZ might want to address or incorporate in the next version.

For the most part, though, the mere prospect of nearly tripling transfer speeds will be all that concerns you so as such, let’s take a look at how the Throttle drive performs.

While there is potential to use this drive as the system drive for a computer (using it as the installation drive for freeNAS springs to mind) or using it as a ReadyBoost drive for Windows Vista, we feel it’s not really the kind of drive you should be using for such applications – there are plenty of small, low price, dedicated SSDs that are more suitable. Therefore we won’t be looking at performance under such conditions.

Instead, the key issue is how this thing holds up when it comes to file transfers. To test this we plugged the drive into our test bed using the eSATA connector and transferred video files (totalling 3.26GB) from the system hard drive (a Western Digital Raptor X) to the Throttle and timed how long it took. We then reversed the process and read the files from the Throttle and wrote them to the hard drive. We then repeated both tests three times (deleting the files and rebooting the PC between each run) to ensure each time was consistent. After this, we used the Throttle’s USB 2.0 connection and repeated all six tests.

The speed difference is clear, with the Throttle over 250 per cent faster when reading over eSATA rather than USB. Likewise, it is over 80 per cent faster when writing over eSATA. These really are compelling figures that alone would be enough to convince us to fork out the extra cash for this drive.

Still, we wanted to be doubly sure its performance held up under more than one test with one data type, so we repeated the testing methodology but replaced the nine video files with 3,595 mixed files (including images, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and Powerpoint presentations) spanning 506 folders and totalling 3.11GB.

What’s immediately obvious is how much longer it takes to copy across many small files rather than a few large ones. This is something we’d expect to see, but we didn’t imagine the difference would be quite so dramatic. On top of this, the write test over USB absolutely skyrocketed, taking a whopping 5mins 56secs compared to just 2mins 44seconds over eSATA.

So performance is not only as good as we’d hoped; it’s actually better. The only other consideration, then, is the price and here OCZ is pretty competitive. While you can get 32GB USB flash drives for as little £50, most seem to be around £60, so we feel its excellent transfer speeds justify the £20 or so premium. Furthermore, if you don’t need quite so much as 32GB, the 8GB and 16GB models are available for just £27 and £45, respectively, so you certainly shouldn’t need to break the bank to get a high-speed portable storage device.

Author
Edward Chester
Manufacturer
OCZ
Supplier
LambdaTek
Price
£66.88 (Exc VAT)
as reviewed
£76.91 (Inc VAT)

Samsung YP-U5 (2GB) Review

Six months or so after releasing its YP-U4 ‘Litmus’, Samsung is back for another crack at the Shuffle-sized Mp3 player market with a new player, rather unimaginatively named the YP-U5. Looking back, I’ve a soft spot for this one’s predecessor. While spoilt by average sound quality and a mediocre battery life, it was a nicely designed and very usable player, putting the vast majority of its competitors to shame on several counts. The U4 was extremely compact, made effective use of a tiny screen and had surprisingly practical controls.

All of which makes it a little odd that Samsung has junked so many elements of the design with its replacement.

Out, for a start, goes the colour graduated finish, in favour of a range of solid colours – red, white, pink or black. The unit is marginally narrower and thinner, but a couple of millimetres longer, and the clever slide-out USB connection of the original has now been swapped for a more conventional USB connector covered by a pop-off cap. Strangely enough, while the U5 is the new and improved version of the U4, it actually feels like a more conservative product.

Still, the all-plastic construction feels good and solid, and it’s arguable that the standard USB plug fitted here offers a more robust connection than the slimmed down, coverless plug sported by the old U4. I suspect that might be the reason for the change.

Switch the U5 on and it’s much easier to see the similarities between it and last year’s model. The screen, a 1in, four line, 128 x 64 pixel OLED affair, is identical to the old version’s, and while the touch-sensitive D-pad of the U5 has been replaced by a tilting, white directional ring surrounding a physical pause/play button, the player operates in much the same way.

The ‘back’ button is now mounted on the top of the unit (viewed horizontally) along with a context-sensitive function button, which does various things depending on what mode you have the U5 in. Volume is adjusted using the up and down directions on the white ring. The only other control is a dual function power toggle/lock button on the bottom of the unit, and it’s this that brings me to one of my few complaints about usability. It’s all too easy to accidentally engage the lock while you’re trying to use the top mounted buttons, which is a small but irritating nuisance during everyday use.

As with the U4, Samsung seems hell-bent on giving you some kind of cool audio/visual experience from a tiny screen. With the previous player we had an almost unrecognisable, miniature monochrome simulacrum of the album cover art during playback, plus a range of animations when you flick between functions on the main menu screen or scroll through option screens, each accompanied by a cheerful little noise.

The U5 has all this stuff, but goes one better with a tiny animated character, labelled ‘Popcon’, who turns up to greet you when you first switch on the player, then dances manically on the left of the ‘now playing’ screen to any tracks where you don’t have album art to, erm, enjoy.

I can’t say that this sort of Tamagotchi nonsense floats my boat, but there’s no question that Samsung has pulled out all the stops to make Popcon a feature, giving you a wide range of cheerful bitmap characters to choose from, and allowing you to name them if you wish. Still, if it’s a bizarre inclusion, it’s not one that has any negative impact on the user experience which is – as with the U4 – very good. Some of us might miss things like on the fly playlist creation, but you can enable gapless playback, and navigation by file browser or the usual ID Tag methods is simplicity itself.

Functionally the U5 has a little more to offer than the average player of this size, though again Samsung seems to be taking a slightly quirky approach. We still get an FM radio with auto presets, a decent little voice recorder and a podcast function, but Samsung has now thrown in a weird Fitness function. Choose an activity from the list (Walking, Running, Hiking, Yoga etc) to do while you’re listening to your player, and the U5 tells you how long you’ve been doing it for and how many calories it thinks you will have burned in the meantime. You can set your body weight and inform the U5 of your daily fitness goals and it will then track your progress day to day, with able help from your ever lovable Popcon.

Again, I can’t see this of being much importance to the average TR reader, but it’s the sort of cute touch that might make the player more appealing to a wider audience. In fact, when you consider that players like this are often sold for use during gym workouts or while jogging, it all makes a certain amount of sense. One thing that doesn’t is that the radio still won’t let you autotune the presets from within the radio function itself. You still have to go outside to the Settings menu and do it from there.

The old U4 was a bit of a disappointment when it came to audio quality. The U5 is an improvement, but – despite Samsung’s trumpeting of its DNSe 3.0 enhancement technology – not a vast one. The variant of DNSe used here is labelled ‘core’, hinting that it doesn’t offer the full power of the version used in the excellent YP-P3 player, and while it still features a processing enhancement designed to restore audio data lost through compression, along with a range of EQ settings, a bass boost function and a 3D effect, the overall result isn’t nearly so impressive.

Bass response is very good, with the U5 dishing out a warm, well defined range of low-end tones and enough power that – with a half-decent pair of headphones – you won’t want to use the bass enhancement function in anger, or you’ll just get a nasty, booming mess

The U5 is also a fine performer at the other end of the audio spectrum; you might find the highs slightly too bright for comfort, but there’s plenty of detail. What’s more, with the 3D effect kept low or switched off, there’s a nice sense of space, with individual instruments clearly positioned across the stereo range.

The problems come with the mid-range. That all-important mid sounds slightly weak, thin and muffled, and that’s enough to put the U5 behind the Sandisk Sansa Clip and even the iPod shuffle in the sound quality stakes. How serious this is will depend on the headphones you’re using and the music you’re listening to. The output actually seems quite well suited to the cheap and cheerful buds thrown in the box, though needless to say these won’t satisfy anyone who is particular about audio quality.

Some genres of music aren’t too badly affected. Levees, from Terence Blanchards orchestrated Jazz album, A Tale of God’s Will, sounded fine, the subdued acoustic bass and melancholy, muted trumpet tones having no problems cutting through the funereal strings running through the early and latter sections of the piece. There was also some nice detailing in the piano, percussion and brass that come in midway through.

While the vocals in tracks from Ray LaMontagne’s Gossip in the Grain suffered from the lack of mid-range clarity, the Samsung still delivered a warm, intimate, no-fuss sound. Bass heavy dance tracks like Justice’s Genesis also work well, playing to the YP-U5′s strengths, and I didn’t get bad results from more poppy material from Justin Timberlake, Maroon 5 or Take That.

Rock tracks, however, particularly those with layered heavy guitars and busy drums, have a tendency to sound messy. It’s hard to make out what’s going on for large sections of Mastodon’s Oblivion, and the thick guitar sounds of The Hold Steady’s Sequestered in Memphis have definitely sounded more punchy and urgent. And forget about switching from the Norm or Auto EQ settings to the Rock preset (or, God forbid, Concert Hall) – you’ll only make things worse.

It’s a shame, because in all other respects the U5 is a very nice player, and a worthy rival to the Sansa Clip (still the thinking man’s small format MP3 player of choice). Battery life, at around 20 hours, is very good, and File Format support, with OGG and FLAC now provided, is certainly above average.

Even the pricing is competitive; I can’t imagine anyone paying £30 for the 2GB version when the 4GB version is only £8 more, but you’re still getting a lot of player for that kind of money. If your tastes run more to pop and dance than rock, then the YP-U5 well worth a look. If, however, you want a great all-rounder that can handle any type of music, then Samsung’s latest little wonder falls slightly – just slightly – short of the mark

I tried the U5 with a range of other ‘phones, including the Grado SR60s and iGrados, the Denon AHC551s and a set of Klipsch Custom 2s, and the weak mid-range was apparent across all of them.

Author
Stuart Andrews

Published
5th Jul 2009

Manufacturer
Samsung

Supplier
Play

Price
£26.08 (Exc VAT)

as reviewed
£29.99 (Inc VAT)

Flip MinoHD review

Cute and pocket sized, the Flip MinoHD could well herald a new era in digital photography, kinda

The Flip MinoHD puts high-definition video in your pocket

The MinoHD is similar in form to its predecessor, the Flip Mino, but it records at a resolution of 1280 x 720 instead of VGA 640 x 480.

To cope with this, there’s 4GB of storage space, which equates to an hour of recording time.

In terms of performance, the MinoHD pleased rather than blew us away.

Its one-touch operation is foolproof, but the 1.5in LCD screen is far too small. Performance in good lighting conditions is pretty decent and although there’s no image stabilisation, the footage is serviceable.

However, videos shot in low lighting conditions were surprisingly good. In this respect, the MinoHD compares favourably to its rivals. You’ll find some sample footage on this month’s SuperDisc.

It’s a shame there is no HDMI out on this version but they we can’t have it all can we?

The bundled software offers seamless uploading to YouTube – ideal for amateur filmmakers – and the handy flip-out USB connection enables you to shoot footage and view it seconds later.

It’s a real shame, however, there’s no HDMI-out on this model.

ABSPlus 160GB laptop backup review

ABSPlus 160GB backup has plenty of useful features, but having to install the software onto every PC is an unnecessary hassle

Can a new portable hard drive make backing up less tedious?

The main difference between the ABSplus and its competitors is that it offers a full system restore from the drive, giving you complete disaster recovery if needed. This is aimed at corporate users, but it’s still immensely useful for home users in the event of a total PC crash.

For those looking for a simple back-up drive, one downside of the BounceBack is that the software has to be installed onto all PCs. This makes the experience a little more long-winded than it needs to be, but once the system is set up, backing up is fast: the ABSplus 160GB is blessed with speedy transfer rates, with a large folder writing at 16MBps.

Restoring data is easy and quick, and files can be accessed from the drive at any time and restored to their original locations or a predefined folder. The ABSplus is a back-up drive with plenty of useful features, then, but given the complexity of operation, those looking for simple functionality might want to look elsewhere.

OCZ Vertex 128GB SSD review

Once again, the best things in life are far from free

Not so long ago, it seemed that memory manufacturers were assuring us that the move away from spinning hard disks would herald a new momentous, Golden Age of Peace and Prosperity on Earth – and then possibly the Whole Universe. Then came the MacBook Air and Asus’ EeePC, whose poor performing solid state drives were the weakest part of otherwise superlative products. Mere months passed before the global depression set in. Coincidence? We’ll never know.

As far as we can tell, solid state hard drives haven’t quite shaken off the reputation for being overly expensive and not as good as you’d expect. That may explain why OCZ has launched its third series of SSDs in barely a year. This Vertex drive is the highest performing model in its range and is kitted out with a healthy 64MB of cache and a new ARM-based controller. This specification should help it overcome some of the bottlenecking problems of earlier drives (from all manufacturers).

As we’ve found with many SSDs, a lot of the theoretical benchmarks that we’ve traditionally used to measure drive performance are good, but don’t seem overly impressive. That’s okay though, because the real world tests irrefutably establish the superiority of solid storage right where you’d expect it. Compared to one of Seagate’s high performing 1TB traditional drives, the Vertex shaved a good third off of Windows Vista’s boot times, and a similar amount from level loading delays.

We only had a single sample in for review, but we’d love to repeat our tests with two or three of these in a RAID array – we’re sure we’d see some outlandish scores.

If you’re thinking of using one of these 2.5inch demons in a laptop, you’ll also benefit from low power consumption (2W at peak) and full shock resistance.

Vertex, then is the SSD which we want in our own rigs. Except that when you look at the price tag it’s clear even if the technology has been mastered, we’re still in the financial dark ages of flash storage. Just as we were starting to see some similarly sized competitors slip below the £150 barrier, OCZ comes along and re-establishes what it means to be premium. Per gigabyte, it’s over 30 times more expensive than a standard hard drive – which is a hell of a lot for what amounts to 30 per cent in improved performance.

You can’t get away with buying a cheaper 30GB model just for booting off of either: the smaller drives aren’t quite as swift as their larger counterparts.

This, then, is the drive you should aspire to own, but it’ll probably be a few years until you afford it.

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Elgato Turbo.264 HD review

Fast video encoding for Apple TV and more, with editing from AVCHD camcorders

Elgato’s original Turbo.264 impressed everyone. Like this new model, it was a small USB dongle containing a dedicated co-processor for encoding video into the H.264 format that has become the standard for iPods, the Apple TV, Blu-ray, and modern, flash storage-based DV cameras.

It only did standard-definition, however, and in the couple of years since its launch, high-definition (HD) has become more popular.

Step forward, then, the Turbo.264 HD, a version that will encode all the way to full 1080p HD. “But I’ve got a Mac Pro,” you think, you lucky swine. Doesn’t matter; using Handbrake, our quad-core 2.66GHz Mac Pro encoded a 43-minute, 720p movie in almost real time, but the Turbo.264 HD slashed that encoding time to just over 18 minutes.

Best of all, the Mac Pro’s processors were maxed out during the Handbrake encode, while the Turbo.264 HD’s shouldering of much of the grunt-work left half the capacity free during its encode, letting you get on with other stuff.

The software is good; just drop in your source video files – there is tons of supported formats – pick the output type and click Start. You can create your own presets, and it will add the resulting video either to iTunes or upload it directly to YouTube for you.

It works directly with AVCHD camcorders, too, letting you view, trim, and join movies together quickly and efficiently