The Gadget: Although the Elgato Turbo.264 hardware encoder has been around for a while, products have been released that make h.264 one of the most, if not the most important video codecs out there. Not only is it supported by the iPod classic, there's the iPod nano, iPod touch, Xbox 360, PS3, Apple TV, many, many phones (including the iPhone), and even the Zune. It's the perfect time to get into h.264.

The Price: $99

The Verdict: Testing on a 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro with 2GB RAM, exporting a movie to iPhone using the Turbo.264 on default settings with Quicktime Pro used less than 50% CPU and took about 11 minutes, whereas exporting the same movie with the same settings without the device used 100% CPU and took 15 minutes.