HandBrake

HandBrake is an open source, free, portable and reliable software project that allows you to convert DVD-Video discs or any other video file from one format to another in an easy and straighforward way. It was originally built for the BeOS operating system, but now runs on GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X.

Features at a glance

Key features include the ability to queue up multiple encoding jobs, support for VFR and CFR, support for chapter and title selection, live video preview, chapter markers, as well as support for average bitrate or constant quality video encoding.

Supports subtitles and video filters

In addition, HandBrake comes with support for various subtitle streams, including SSA, SRT, VobSub and Closed Captions CEA-608, as well as support for video filters, such as deinterlacing, cropping, decomb, scaling, detelecine, grayscale and deblock.

Supports a wide range of video file formats

The application has been designed with usability in mind, which means that it comes with support for a wide range of video file formats, including any DVD-like source (VIDEO_TS folder, DVD image or VOB file), encrypted DVDs, MKV, MPG, MP4, MOV, AVI, OGG, FLV and WMV.

Outputs to MP4 and MKV

Supported output video file formats include MP4 and MKV, but the program can use the H.264 (x264), MPEG-2 (libav), Theora (libtheora) and MPEG-4 video encoders, as well as the AAC, AC3, FLAC, MP3, OGG Vorbis and CoreAudio AAC/HE-AAC audio encoders. Additionally, you can pass-through AC-3, AAC, MP3, DTS and DTS-HD audio tracks.

Features numerous presets

Another interesting feature is the multitude of presets, which means that you can easily encode a certain video file for a specific device, such as iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Android phone or tablet.

It’s a multi-platform software

The software has been designed from the ground up to be cross-platform, supporting the GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. It runs well on both 32-bit and 64-bit computers.

What is new in this release:

• All platforms:
• General:
• - Fixed a potential crash in the comb detection filter
• - Fixed a potential crash in the padding filter
• Video:
• - Fixed decoding certain very high bit rate ultra-high definition sources with extra large packets
• - Fixed last frame in source video missing in output
• Audio:
• - Fixed crash when decoding an empty audio track
• Build system:
• - Updated mac-toolchain-build script Nasm url and improved curl parameters for robustness
• Third-party libraries:
• - Updated libraries (necessary to pull in needed bug fixes)
• - libvpx 1.7.0 (VP8/VP9 video encoding)
• - x264 155 r2901 (H.264/AVC video encoding)
• Linux:
• - Fixed Ubuntu PPA build date
• - Fixed a display issue with the quality slider control
• - Fixed issues occurring when running multiple HandBrake instances simultaneously
• - Updated Russian translation
• - Updated support for creating Flatpak bundles (experimental)
• - Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements
• Mac:
• - Fixed corrupted output with VP8 and VP9 encoders
• - Fixed building x264 using Clang and -march=native/-mavx (thanks H. Gramner for the upstream patch)
• Windows:
• - Fixed issues with queue recovery when running multiple HandBrake instances simultaneously
• - Fixed an issue with a When Done action potentially causing the last queue item to be marked as a warning instead of success
• - Fixed burn-in behavior with MP4 files; after the first burn-in track, no additional tracks that require burn-in will be added
• - Improved window resize behavior for Add Selection to Queue dialog and allowed space bar to toggle checkbox for selected row
• - Improved tabbing behavior in various circumstances
• - Improved adding a new preset with the same name as an existing user preset; the existing preset will now be updated properly
• - Improved privacy by adding an option to disable the Summary tab preview image
• - Updated installer to block installation on 32-bit systems to avoid confusion (unsupported since 1.1.0)
• - Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements

What is new in version :

• Video:
• Fixed point to point encoding end point when using frames as the unit
• Improve error handling for libdvdread and libavcodec decoders
• Audio:
• Fixed an issue where fallback encoder bitrate was not set properly
• Subtitles:
• Fixed incorrect duration for UTF-8 subtitles
• Fixed an issue causing extra blank lines for UTF-8 subtitles in MKV
• Linux:
• Fixed an issue sometimes preventing dragging and dropping of presets between folders
• Miscellaneous bug fixes
• Mac:
• Fixed video encoder options not reset when changing encoders
• Fixed incomplete encodes where the chapter count differs on queued items
• Fixed sleep prevention not working in certain scenarios
• Fixed automatic naming for EyeTV bundles
• Added additional checks to prevent source file overwriting
• Miscellaneous bug fixes
• Windows:
• Fixed video encoder options not reset when changing encoders
• Fixed subtitles defaults behaviors to improve how tracks are added
• Fixed issues related to source maximum and custom picture setting modes
• Fixed point to point settings when editing a queued job
• Fixed When Done controls not updating correctly on various screens
• Fixed split buttons not working correctly on audio and subtitles tabs
• Fixed destination path and file name error checking
• Fixed potential crash by disabling OpenCL detection when the scaler is not set to OpenCL Bicubic (workaround for broken system drivers)
• Fixed a potential crash when QSV is supported but disabled at the BIOS level
• Fixed memory leaks in the QSV encoder
• Added QSV detection for Intel Kaby Lake CPUs
• Miscellaneous bug fixes

What is new in version 1.0.0:

• General:
• New online documentation at https://handbrake.fr/docs
• Completely overhauled the official presets
• New general use presets for broad compatibility
• New device presets, now more up-to-date for common devices
• New web presets
• New Matroska (MKV) presets, including VP9 video with Opus audio
• Official presets from HandBrake 0.10.x are still available under "Legacy"
• New JSON-based preset system including command line support
• New JSON-based API for interacting with libhb
• Improvements to audio/video sync engine to better handle difficult sources
• Many miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements (over 1700 code commits!)
• Video:
• VP9 video encoding via libvpx
• Intel QuickSync Video H.265/HEVC encoder
• Requires Intel Skylake or newer CPU
• Ultra HD / 4K color pass through (support for BT.2020)
• Additional standard frame rate selections in the graphical interfaces
• New Auto anamorphic mode maximizes storage resolution, replaces Strict anamorphic mode
• New Pad filter (command line only for now)
• New Decomb/Deinterlace filter settings and improved defaults
• Rotate filter now available in all graphical interfaces
• New NLMeans filter tunes Tape and Sprite for analog tape recordings and vintage video games, respectively
• Assembly optimizations NLMeans filter improve performance up to 10%
• Assembly optimizations in x264 encoder improve performance for faster presets by 5-10%
• x265 encoder quality improvements, especially when using tune grain
• High bit depth encoding support via external shared libraries (video pipeline is still 8-bit 4:2:0)
• x264 10-bit
• x265 10-bit and 12-bit
• Audio:
• Opus audio encoding/decoding via libopus
• Passthru now supports E-AC-3, FLAC, and TrueHD audio formats
• Subtitles:
• Improved subtitles rendering for some languages via HarfBuzz
• Miscellaneous subtitles improvements
• Command line interface:
• Presets can now be imported and exported from the command line and are compatible with the graphical interfaces
• Queue exported from the graphical interfaces can now be imported by the command line interface (Linux and Windows only for now)
• Build system:
• Add scripts to manually build and install Mac and MinGW-w64 (compile for Windows on Linux) toolchains
• Add support for multiple source URLs for third-party downloads
• Add SHA256 hash verification for third-party downloads
• Add configure parameter to disable or filter allowed third-party downloads (see configure --help)
• Use HTTPS everywhere; the few cases where a third-party does not provide packages over https, handbrake.fr does
• New targets on Mac to install and uninstall after building
• Add flatpak packaging support (experimental)
• Third-party libraries:
• Updated libraries:
• FreeType 2.6.5 (subtitles)
• Fontconfig 2.12.1 (subtitles)
• FriBidi 0.19.7 (subtitles)
• Libav 12 (encoding/decoding/muxing)
• libass 0.13.2 (subtitles)
• libbluray 0.9.3 (Blu-ray decoding)
• libmfx v6.0.0 (Intel QuickSync Video encoding/decoding)
• libvpx 1.5.0 (VP8/VP9 video encoding)
• x264 148 r2708 (H.264/AVC video encoding)
• x265 2.1 (H.265/HEVC video encoding)
• New libraries:
• HarfBuzz 1.3.0 (subtitles)
• libopus 1.1.3 (Opus audio encoding)
• Linux:
• Add options for saving and loading queue files
• Removed system tray icon due to performance issues on Ubuntu
• Usability improvements
• Miscellaneous bug fixes
• Mac:
• Updated all tooltips
• Added undo/redo support to the graphical interface
• Improved drag and drop support
• Added Open Recent to the File menu
• Added Add Titles to Queue... to the File menu (batch queueing)
• Preview prompts to open in an external application when the internal player does not support the format
• Preview now displays volume and audio/subtitles language selection during playback
• Picture and Filters settings are now part of the main window
• Settings are preserved when selecting a new title (instead of reloading the last selected preset)
• Improved support for importing/exporting comma-separated (.csv) chapter markers
• Queue is now automatically paused when available disk space is low
• When Done action can now be changed directly from the Queue window
• When Done notification is now interactive (reveals the encoded file in Finder)
• Activity Log window is now searchable (press "?"+"f" to activate)
• XQuartz is no longer required for subtitle burn-in
• Updated Sparkle software update library
• Enabled DSA signature checking for improved security
• Usability improvements
• Miscellaneous bug fixes
• Windows:
• Graphical interface now uses libhb directly, instead of sending commands to the command line interface
• Encoding can now be paused and resumed
• Stopping encoding will finalize the partial file to be playable
• Reduced installer and install size
• The command line interface is no longer included in the graphical interface installer
• Update checker now verifies the signature of the update file for improved security
• Added support for quality-based audio encoding
• Added ability to import tab-separated (.tsv), XML (.xml), and plain text (.txt) chapter markers
• Improved the "configure default" options for audio and subtitles
• Default audio track behavior is now configurable
• Subtitles burn-in behavior is now configurable
• Removed DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA) hardware-accelerated video decoding
• Was causing many issues without providing sufficient improvement to decoding efficiency
• May be added again at a later date if performance and stability improves
• Usability improvements
• Miscellaneous bug fixes

What is new in version 0.10.5:

• Removal of FDK AAC from our binary releases. --enable-fdk is required for "non-free" builds if compiling from source.
• Updated x265 to 1.9 which brings bug fixes and performance improvements.
• Few minor bug fixes since the 0.10.3 release. This includes improvements in large AVI file handling.

What is new in version 0.10.2:

• This is second release for the 0.10 branch which brings a number of bug fixes and performance improvements.

What is new in version 0.10.1:

• Various bug fixes for all platforms and the core engine.
• Updated x265 to 1.5 which brings numerous bug fixes and some performance improvements.

What is new in version 0.10.0:

• Encoders:
• We are introducing several new encoders with this release and replacing others.
• Intel QuickSync Video
• is a hardware based H.264 encoder that is available on Intel CPUs. Currently, QSV is only supported on Windows but we hope to bring this to Linux users in the future. Thanks to the good people at Intel for making this possible!
• H.265
• is now available through x265 1.4. While this encoder is still fairly new, we have seen some promising results come out of it. It's still under heavy active development and is only going to improve over time!
• VP8
• using the libvpx encoder. We have now deprecated Theora (VP3) in favour of VP8 which is a more modern encoder offering better quality encodes at lower file sizes.
• LibFaac
• Has now officially been removed due to GPL compatibility issues, and replaced with the libav AAC encoder as the new default for Windows and Linux. In addition, we have added the FDK AAC encoder for Windows and Linux as a optional compile-time option. The Mac release will continue to use CoreAudio as the default.
• As usual, we've updated a number of the core libraries including x264 and libav
• Filters and Scalers:
• Denoise
• The new NLMeans filter offers much higher quality denoising. Our previous filter, hqdn3d, now accepts individual settings for each of the chroma channels (Cb, Cr).
• OpenCL Scaling
• In addition to the default Lanczos scaling algorithm, HandBrake now offers BiCubic scaling on Windows via OpenCL. If the results prove positive, we may roll it out to other platforms in a future release. Thanks to the guys at AMD for building our OpenCL framework!
• GUIs:
• Feature Parity
• A lot of work has been done to bring the user interfaces closer in terms of feature parity. We are now much closer than in any previous release.
• Audio and Subtitle Defaults
• The audio and subtitle controls have been overhauled to support default behaviours which can be stored in presets. This simplifies the workflow for many batch encoding scenarios.

What is new in version 0.10 Beta 4:

• This release includes a number of improvements and bug fixes over the third Beta release.

What is new in version 0.10 Beta 2:

• This includes a number of improvements and bug fixes over the first Beta release

What is new in version 0.10 Beta 1:

• Core:
• Intel QuickSync Video Encode / Decode support.
• Windows only currently. We hope to bring this to Linux user in the future.
• DXVA Hardware Decode support (Experimental)
• Windows Only.
• Suitable only for slower machines so disabled in preferences by default.
• Choice of Scalers
• Lanczos
• HandBrakes? default scaler.
• Bicubic (OpenCL) (Experimental)
• Currently only available in OpenCL form so requires a AMD or Intel GPU supporting OpenCL 1.1 or later. Nvidia GPU's are not currently supported.
• When downscaling, up to 5% performance improvement can be achieved. No benefit when not down-scaling.
• Small loss in quality over the Lanczos scaler.
• Denoise
• hqdn3d filter now accepts individual settings for both chroma channels (Cr, Cb)
• New NlMeans? denoiser. This is very slow, but results are significantly better than hqdn3d.
• Presets
• Added Windows Phone 8 Preset
• Updated Libraries
• x264 r2431-ac76440
• Libav v10.1
• libbluray 0.5.0
• Libavformat is now used for muxing instead of mp4v2 and libmkv
• "Large File Size" checkbox has now bee removed for mp4, as the new muxer will transition to 64bit files automatically.
• mpeg2dec has also been replaced in favour of using libav
• The LibAV AAC encoder is now the default as FAAC has been removed.
• This encoder is adequate for most, but until it improves a bit further, we have enabled support for the FDK-AAC encoder also.
• This FDK option is a temporary measure until the LibAV encoder improves.
• Note that FDK-AAC is much slower and will likely bottleneck the encode process, but will produce better quality audio.
• H.265 encoder (Experimental - available when compiled from source with --enable-x265)
• Early build of the new x265 encoder. Enabled on Windows only currently. (Mac / Linux builds will have it enabled shortly)
• Currently still some way off being ready for prime time. Useful for testing only at this stage.
• Added VP8 Encoder (using libvpx)
• Available in MKV files only.
• Removed mcdeint deinterlace and decomb modes. This relied on the snow encoder in libav which has been was removed by upstream.
• Bug fixes and Misc Improvements
• Linux:
• Automatic audio and subtitle track selection behaviours which can be stored per preset.
• Improvements to Auto-Naming feature.
• Batch Add to queue by list selection.
• Russian and Czech Translations
• Bug fixes and Misc Improvements
• Requires GTK3
• Command Line Interface:
• Basic support for return codes from the CLI. (0 = No Error, 1 = Cancelled, 2 = Invalid Input, 3 = Initialization error, 4 = Unknown Error")
• Bug fixes and Misc Improvements

What is new in version 0.9.9:

• General:
• Improved HandBrake pineapple icon by Matt Johnson
• Improved Retina-resolution icons within the application, by Nik Pawlak
• Core:
• Blu-ray (PGS) subtitle support
• works with Foreign Audio Search
• can be Burned-In
• can be passed through to MKV (but not MP4)
• Additional video framerates
• 30, 50, 59.94, 60 fps
• Double framerate ("bob") mode for the deinterlace and decomb filters
• Better audio remix support
• additional mixdowns: 6.1, 7.1, 7.1 (5F/2R/LFE). CLI users should note 6ch becomes 5point1
• better-than-Stereo sources can be upmixed to 5.1
• discard one channel from Stereo sources. Mono (Left Only), Mono (Right Only)
• Allow the selection of higher audio bitrates where appropriate
• Allow the selection of lower audio samplerates where appropriate
• 8, 11.025, 12, 16 kHz
• Audio dithering (TPDF) when converting to 16-bit FLAC
• Use libavcodec for DTS audio decoding (instead of libdca)
• DTS-ES 6.1 Discrete support
• All graphical interfaces: support for x264's preset, tune and profile options
• alternative to the Advanced panel (which is still available)
• HandBrake-specific option to ensure compliance with a specific H.264 level
• Updated built-in presets
• take advantage of x264 preset/tune/profile support
• removed increasingly suboptimal and irrelevant Legacy presets
• Assorted bug fixes and improvements to the core library (libhb)
• Updated libraries
• x264 r2273-b3065e6
• Libav v9.6
• libbluray 0.2.3
• Linux:
• Assorted bug fixes and improvements
• Use some system libraries rather than bundling
• fontconfig, freetype, libxml2, libass, libogg, libvorbis, libtheora and libsamplerate
• Command Line Interface:
• Audio option (-a) will ignore invalid input tracks and encode with only the valid ones
• Allow use of hh:mm:ss format when specifying p-to-p start/stop time
• Advanced audio options
• enable level normalization when downmixing (disabled by default)
• disable audio dithering or select a specific algorithm

What is new in version 0.9.7:

• We've decided to release an update for 0.9.6 that fixes a couple of common issues and adds a new preset for the AppleTV 3 and tweaks the existing iPad preset to support up to 720P.

What is new in version 0.9.6:

• Encoders:
• -> Video:
• updated libx264 (revision 2146)
• MPEG-2 encoder (from libavcodec)
• advanced options support for libavcodec encoders format: option1=value1:option2=value2
• -bf 2 -trellis 2 becomes bf=2:trellis=2
• -> Audio:
• audio gain control (increase/decrease audio volume)
• updated libogg (1.3.0) and libvorbis (aoTuV b6.03)
• new AAC encoder (from libavcodec) (considered experimental) (supported mixdowns: Mono/Stereo/Dolby?, 5.1 will come later) (should be on par with faac in terms of quality, sometimes better)
• FLAC encoder (16-bit, MKV container only)
• Mac OS X: HE-AAC encoding support, via Core Audio
• quality-based variable bitrate encoding support works with: Lame MP3, Vorbis, Core Audio AAC only implemented in CLI and Linux GUI
• AC3 encoder: set Dolby Surround flag in stream parameters when mixdown is Dolby Surround or Pro Logic II
• -> Audio Passthru:
• DTS Passthru to MP4 container (in addition to MKV) (supported by e.g. VLC, MPlayer)
• DTS-HD Passthru (MP4, MKV containers)
• MP3 Passthru (MP4, MKV containers)
• AAC Passthru (MP4, MKV containers) (known issue: Magic Cookie not passed through from MPEG Program/Transport? streams,
• which will break playback in e.g. QuickTime Player)
• Auto Passthru: one encoder, multiple codecs lets you define allowed codecs (from supported passthru codecs) lets you pick a fallback encoder if passthru is not possible
• Muxers:
• start MKV clusters with a video keyframe whenever possible should improve seeking and DLNA streaming
• bug fix: use ISO 639-2 bibliographic form for MKV language codes
• bug fix: fix crash due to division by zero in MP4 muxer
• bug fix: fix muxing of Closed Captions. Improper interleaving broke playback on some players
• Decoders:
• -> Video:
• updated libav* libraries from Libav ( http://libav.org/) (v0.7-1696-gcae4f4b, late October 2011) frame-based multithreading for H.264, VP8 10-bit decoding support for H.264, DNxHD Apple ProRes? decoding support
• improved average framerate detection
• duplicate frame detection for improved frame drop decision (CFR/PFR)
• new Same as source, Constant Framerate option for devices that don't support variable framerate automatically picks a constant framerate closest to the detected average framerate
• bug fix: fix problem when resolution changes in the middle of a video stream
• -> Audio:
• Blu-ray: make TrueHD, DTS-HD and E-AC3 Secondary Audio streams available for decoding and/or passthrough
• bug fix: libavcodec-decoded streams can now be decoded multiple times
• previously, multiple decodes of the same source tracks weren't possible and audio output tracks had to be dropped
• bug fix: fix audio screech at beginning of some audio tracks when decoding AC3
• bug fix: fix DTS decoder audio volume (was too low)
• bug fix: garbled audio when decoding DTS-HD audio from MKV containers
• bug fix: fix support for DTS-HD High Resolution Audio in MPEG Transport streams
• -> Subtitles:
• updated libass (0.10.0)
• improved handling of subtitles with overlapping timestamps
• improved handling of DVD subtitles without Stop Display commands
• SSA subtitles are now passed through to MKV without conversion to SRT/UTF-8
• bug fix: fix rendering problem with SSA subtitles when no font is embedded in the source video
• Demuxers:
• improved MPEG Program/Transport? stream support support for MPEG-1 Program streams support for HD-DVD EVOB streams improved handling of Transport streams that have no PCR
• WTV container support (via libavformat)
• bug fix: files with more than 20 tracks (video, audio, subtitles etc.) are now supported
• bug fix: some QuickTime MOV files were misdirected as MPEG Transport streams
• bug fix: fix detection of TrueType? font attachments that don't have the correct MIME type
• Filters:
• new, much improved decomb filter (but slower) new settings are default old settings become decomb "Fast"
• Presets:
• improved "Normal" preset (much faster, similar file size and quality)
• removed obsolete legacy presets
• added new device presets for Android phones/tablets recent and/or powerful devices recommended
• Mac OS X:
• -> DVD decryption:
• VLC 2.x or later will not work for DVD decryption and is therefore unsupported as of HandBrake 0.9.6
• libdvdcss is now the preferred method for DVD decryption already works with HandBrake 0.9.5 a .pkg installer is available from Videolan: http://download.videolan.org/libdvdcss/last/macosx/
• -> Build system:
• support for Xcode 4 and Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion"
• Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" no longer supported
• Mac OS X GUI:
• -> OS X 10.7 Lion support:
• bug fix: Live Preview window widgets updated to work under Lion
• bug fix: fixed positioning of widgets in the Audio panel under Lion
• -> Other:
• wider main window providing more room for various widgets
• Windows GUI:
• -> Preview window:
• complete redesign
• support for VLC or the system default video player
• dropped built-in QuickTime playback support
• -> Other:
• much improved control over the default audio and subtitle tracks selected (see Options)
• ability to set the minimal title length that will show up during a scan (see Options)
• several other usability improvements
• installer now has a silent option for easier network installs (launch the installer with /S)
• Linux GUI:
• -> Audio panel:
• new advanced audio options section for gain and audio track names
• dynamic range compression and samplerate moved to advanced audio options
• -> Other:
• minor UI tweaks and usability enhancements
• Miscellaneous:
• Target Size is gone, and isn't coming back Don't bother complaining on the forums
• CLI: support for x264 presets, tunes and profiles new --x264-preset, --x264-tune and --x264-profile options
• DVD: fix issues with some discs
• DVD: improved main feature detection
• updated libbluray (0.0.1-pre-213-ga869da8, late May 2011)

What is new in version 0.9.5:

• Core Library:
• BluRay disc structure support. (No decryption support)
• Updated Libraries (x264, ffmpeg)
• SSA Subtitle support. (Including burn-in)
• MP3 audio now supported in MP4 files (Note: Limited Player compatibility)
• VOBSUB subtitle now supported in MP4 files (Note: Limited Player compatibility)
• Updated Presets for newer devices and better quality
• AC3 encoding support.
• Many Bug Fixes and other small improvements
• Improved DVD Main Feature detection (when using dvdnav)
• Universal audio downmix support (all audio types can be downmixed)
• Point*to*Point encoding (second or frame start and end times)
• Peak framerate option (Capped VFR)
• All GUIs:
• Updated x264 Advanced Panel
• Video Quality Slider drops % value and only shows RF for x264
• Batch Scan (Scan Multiple files at once. N.B: Does not include multiple VIDEO_TS folders / Image files)
• Many Bug fixes
• Many Tweaks to improve usability.
• Ability to edit queue jobs
• Linux GUI:
• Multiple instance support (run multiple copies of ghb at once)
• Many Bug fixes and UI improvements.
• Notices:
• Power PC (PPC) is no longer officially supported. Given limited resources and time, it simply isn't feasible for this project to support minority platforms. For those of you still using older hardware, we recommend you stick with 0.9.4.

What is new in version 0.9.4:

• x264
• A large portion of these speed, size, and quality improvements come to us for free, from the x264 project. The past year, like every year, has seen some massive improvements for that video encoding engine. As always, it has been further hand-optimized for better performance. But it has also gained new features like macroblock tree rate control and weighted P-Frame prediction. The end result? Better picture quality, at a smaller size, faster.
• So, if x264 alone gives us smaller, better, faster encodes...what have HandBrake's developers been doing over the past year?
• Oh, all sorts of things!
• New build system
• HandBrake has a new, much improved compilation system, which allows easy 64-bit and parallel builds, as well as providing easy extendability for future improvements to the application. 64-bit builds tend to perform approximately 10% better than their 32-bit brethren. There is no Snow Leopard magic here: the performance gains can also be realized on Intel Macs running 10.5, as well as Linux systems.
• Soft subtitles
• HandBrake can now include subtitle tracks that can be turned on and off, instead of rendering them onto the video track permanently (which also reduces video compression). This means you can include Closed Captioning data from DVDs and TV broadcasts, or find SRT text subtitle files on the 'net and include them. When using the Matroska container, you can also store the graphical subtitle images (VobSubs) from a DVD as a separate track. An added benefit is that multiple subtitle tracks can be included in the same output video.
• Live preview
• Ever wished you could test HandBrake settings before spending hours on a full encode? Now, you can.
• The picture settings and preview sheet has been broken out into a filters and picture settings inspector, and a preview window. The preview window can show you still frames from your source, like always. But it also lets you start to encode a short clip from the current preview with the currently selected settings, and view the results right there inside of HandBrake.
• Better input support, for DVD and non-DVD sources alike
• HandBrake now uses a better DVD reading library called libdvdnav. This means it can now read some DVDs it had trouble with before, and it can also select different angles on a DVD. As well, some bugs in underlying libraries have been patched.
• For non-DVD sources, HandBrake now offers improved transport stream support, especially for high definition sources. A number of decoding bugs have been resolved as well, so Windows users will no longer need fear AAC audio, nor Mac users fear VC-1 video.
• Constant quality encoding
• No more looking for the perfect bitrate for a source--HandBrake is migrating to quality-based encoding. This means that instead of telling encoders to use a specific size and vary quality to meet it, we tell the encoder to vary size to meet a given quality level. Overall quality improves, since bits are spent only when they are needed, and are saved when they are not. While this means output size is somewhat unpredictable, the results in picture quality speak for themselves.
• As part of this change, the quality slider has been made more prominent, and now works off the quality values used by the video encoders, instead of a confusing, custom, percentage scale.
• Another result is that 2-pass encoding is not needed. A single pass at a constant quality provides just as much compression efficiency as two passes at an average bitrate.

Requirements:

• liba52 (AC3 decoding)
• libavcodec (picture cropping, scaling and deinterlacing, MPEG-4 encoding)
• libdvdcss (CSS decryption)
• libdvdread (DVD navigation)
• libfaac (AAC encoding)
• libmp3lame (MP3 encoding)
• libmp4v2 (MP4 muxing)
• libmpeg2 (MPEG-2 decoding)
• libogg (OGM muxing)
• libsamplerate (audio resampling)
• libvorbis (Vorbis encoding)
• libx264 (H264 encoding)
• libxvidcore (MPEG-4 encoding)