7 ms·

Handbrake 0.10.0 released

184 points by chuckreynolds 12y ago

e40 12y ago
When I used Handbrake, I always had audio sync issues. I could never figure out what I was doing wrong. That was on Windows. Now that I'm on a Mac, perhaps it'll go better, though I don't have the need to use it much anymore.
- gillianseed 12y ago
  I've never had any audio sync problems with Handbrake, then again I've never done anything 'exotic' (basically encode my dvd's to x264+audio passthrough) and everything has worked fine.
  - josteink 12y ago
    Back when you wanted to encode a DVD to the size of one (or maybe two) CDs, having audio-passthrough was not an option. You typically re-encoded the data from 384-448kbps (for AC3-surround) down to 128kbps stereo. For that you used MP3 audio. I also recall the earlier Frauenhofer MP3 codecs incorrectly reported audible length of chunk-sizes (or something like that) causing incremental audio-skew and sync-issues with the corresponding video the longer into the movie you came. It seemed impossible to fix and was terribly frustrating. Eventually the tools caught up and patched up the data, or we got better tools (like lame) which didn't produce the faulty artefacts to begin with. Maybe this is what he's talking about, as the Frauenhofer MP3-codec was very much a Windows-only thing.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- jzzskijj 12y ago
  During the last three years I have installed Handbrake twice to convert a just created WMV to H.264/AAC. On both occasions Handbrake just failed to do anything for the file and I ended up uninstalling it. Later I created a kilometer long ffmpeg command line and been happily creating files to be used with Flowplayer. Those files have been playing without any issues on iOS, Android, Windows, Linux and MacOSX. I wonder why this Windows Live Movie Maker output turned out to be problematic for Handbrake, but on the other hand now I haven't needed to start any video conversion GUI for a long time.
higherpurpose 12y ago
HandBrake uses HTTPS, but Sourceforge doesn't...great.
- tokenizerrr 12y ago
  https://handbrake.fr/checksums.php https://handbrake.fr/checksums.php
  - pokoleo 12y ago
    This ~prevents people from modifying the binary that you download, but doesn't prevent them from knowing that you downloaded it.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      Going to the Handbrake site is a good clue (plus seeing a stream of a few MBs), and HTTPS doesn't protect them from knowing that, since they need to be the only site on that IP and/or use SNI, which sends the hostname in plaintext.
    - akerl_ 12y ago
      You realize that HTTPS doesn't hide what sites you visit, of course?
      - JosephRedfern 12y ago
        But it hides the HTTP request itself - Sourceforge hosts thousands of different projects, if served over HTTPS it'd be considerably harder to tell which download had been requested.
        dhbanes 12y ago
        I'm pretty sure an HTTPS GET request to http[s]://iweb.dl.sourceforge.net/project/handbrake/0.10.0/HandBrake-0.10.0-MacOSX.6_GUI_x86_64.dmg would be pretty easy to identify as a HandBrake download. The resource requested is not hidden.
quink 12y ago
While still waiting for Daala I've already started encoding my videos in H.265 separately from handbrake, using mplayer. It's been going very well, H.265 will be awesome once it really starts hitting the mainstream. The bitrates are magically small and x265 is pretty fast. mkv container and Opus audio.
- voltagex_ 12y ago
  I realise this is subjective but how's the quality of x265? What's the encoding speed like in comparison to x264?
  - kristofferR 12y ago
    It's good for bitrate starved files, but x264 is actually still more efficient for transparent encodes. x265 currently can't handle noise very well. x265 is also much slower than x264, but it's getting faster all the time.
    - gillianseed 12y ago
      >It's good for bitrate starved files, but x264 is actually still more efficient for transparent encodes. x265 currently can't handle noise very well. Yes this is my impression as well from the tests I've made. >x265 is also much slower than x264, but it's getting faster all the time. It will remain slower than x264 though, it uses more cpu consuming algorithms in order to cram out more 'quality per bit', that said it likely has a lot of performance improvements left to do.
      - xooyoozoo 12y ago
        >It will remain slower than x264 though, it uses more cpu consuming algorithms in order to cram out more 'quality per bit' At an abstract level, HEVC is AVC + refinement + new algorithms. Conforming bitstreams aren't required to use all or even most features, so in the long-term, I don't see why an HEVC encoder can't be a simple, straightforward superset of x264 (i.e. same speed for same quality).
1ris 12y ago
Still no opus?
marco1 12y ago
XMedia Recode [1] can do all this as well. Looks quite similar as well, by the way. But of course, it's not open-source, while Handbrake is. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMedia_Recode http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMedia_Recode
- Zeebrommer 12y ago
  Experts estimate that there are approximately millions [0] of AV converters around. At least, in my experience. [0] not really
cheng1 12y ago
Love the software. However, still can't do batch convert on a OS? You can convert a whole folder with a few clicks in the Windows version.
- bphogan 12y ago
  Maybe I don't understand what you want to do, but for at least 3 years I've been able to load a video clip in, set up the settings, add to queue, load video, add to queue, repeat. Then process the whole queue overnight.
  - cheng1 12y ago
    You can add the whole folder at once and use that "Add all titles to queue" button.
- siilats 12y ago
  It can batch convert a whole Folder without having to add individual files and always has been. One of the worst ui choices for it though, there is a well hidden menu item called add all. Took me forever to find it
  - cheng1 12y ago
    I found it. Thanks!
- OmS78 12y ago
  there are other more professional software out there for automated workflow. An example of this is: http://www.telestream.net/episode/overview.htm http://www.telestream.net/episode/overview.htm
- hobbsy 12y ago
  check out this script by Don Melton: https://github.com/donmelton/video-transcoding-scripts https://github.com/donmelton/video-transcoding-scripts
rossy 12y ago
> In addition, we have added the FDK AAC encoder for Windows and Linux as a optional compile-time option. It's a shame that libfdk-aac is also GPL incompatible. It's hands down the best free AAC encoder, but a version of FFmpeg/libav/Handbrake that's compiled against it is not allowed to be distributed.
- Igglyboo 12y ago
  would distributing a shell script that automated that install/compile process be legal?
  - feld 12y ago
    Yes it's called FreeBSD ports :-) (Not sure if this is an option, but could be easily added)
ulfw 12y ago
"QSV is only supported on Windows" "libav AAC encoder as the new default for Windows" "HandBrake now offers BiCubic scaling on Windows via OpenCL" Sad that the Mac doesn't seem to get many of the goodies anymore.
- astrange 12y ago
  OS X's built-in AAC encoder is the best available, so it doesn't need a replacement. On the other hand, QSV is entirely outclassed by x264 quality-wise, and I could only recommend it for heat/battery power savings (useful for AirPlay Mirroring, not so much for DVD backups). It is odd that OpenCL programs wouldn't work, but that can't be much more, uh, work. I think the addition of NLMeans is interesting, since that filter is so slow I've only ever used it for photo processing.
  - galad87 12y ago
    The OpenCL code works on mac too, but it's not available in th e GUI due to a corner width/height case in which the downscale quality gets hideous. HandBrake has got no active developer working on the OpenCL code anymore, so it will stay as it is until someone comes and fixes it.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
jmnicolas 12y ago
Handbrake could really use some TLC on the GUI. It's so confusing (at least for me) that I was only using it in CLI mode. This ended up being a good thing : I made a script to only convert at night when electricity is cheaper.
Zeebrommer 12y ago
At times I do need an audio/video converter, and it is always a bit of a pain sifting trough all the dubious and low quality freeware programs. Although Handbrake is not really dubious, last time I tried it wasn't very user friendly or easy either. Anyone know why it seems to be hard to make a nice, easy 'convert arbitrary format to something commonplace' program? And since this gets upvoted, is Handbrake considered the current standard?
- anomaly_ 12y ago
  Adapter (http://www.macroplant.com/adapter/ http://www.macroplant.com/adapter/) could be what you're looking for
- ubercow13 12y ago
  You could try just using ffmpeg (depending on your definition of easy). In most instances it will simply be a case of something like ffmpeg -i input -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -c:a libfdk_aac output.mkv
  - Igglyboo 12y ago
    I second this, I bet most of those freeware programs are just shitty GUIs around ffmpeg anyway. I doubt the developers of those programs care about GPL violations either.
- jason46 12y ago
  It has a gui with presets I thought was straightforward and a good cli that can be used with batch files. For free software I think it does a good job, if you want to split hairs the contrast in very dark scenes gets "blotchy".
xfalcox 12y ago
Hey guys, someone has a good list of presets to share?
- pkroll 12y ago
  You'll have to spend a great deal of time to beat the presets already used by Handbrake/x264, and you'll only be able to do it on a particular clip. There's a good article[1] on the presets and how they impact quality, which lead me to using slow or slower for pretty much everything. [1] http://www.videoquality.pl/preset-settings-x264-quality-compression-speed-test/ http://www.videoquality.pl/preset-settings-x264-quality-comp...
jcslzr 12y ago
VidCoder > Handbrake
- KevinEldon 12y ago
  "VidCoder is a DVD/Blu-ray ripping and video transcoding application for Windows. It uses HandBrake as its encoding engine." -- 1st sentence on VidCoder's site I think you mean VidCoder has a better interface for HandBrake on Windows then HandBrake? I haven't had any problems w/ HandBrake's UI on Windows, but I keep it pretty simple so maybe if you want to do more complex things VidCoder is better.
Yadi 12y ago
This is very interesting! I'm using AWS elastic transcoder, but this as an AMI could be cool too, any thoughts on going that way?

184 points by chuckreynolds 12y ago

e40 12y ago

When I used Handbrake, I always had audio sync issues. I could never figure out what I was doing wrong. That was on Windows. Now that I'm on a Mac, perhaps it'll go better, though I don't have the need to use it much anymore.

gillianseed 12y ago
I've never had any audio sync problems with Handbrake, then again I've never done anything 'exotic' (basically encode my dvd's to x264+audio passthrough) and everything has worked fine.
- josteink 12y ago
  Back when you wanted to encode a DVD to the size of one (or maybe two) CDs, having audio-passthrough was not an option. You typically re-encoded the data from 384-448kbps (for AC3-surround) down to 128kbps stereo. For that you used MP3 audio. I also recall the earlier Frauenhofer MP3 codecs incorrectly reported audible length of chunk-sizes (or something like that) causing incremental audio-skew and sync-issues with the corresponding video the longer into the movie you came. It seemed impossible to fix and was terribly frustrating. Eventually the tools caught up and patched up the data, or we got better tools (like lame) which didn't produce the faulty artefacts to begin with. Maybe this is what he's talking about, as the Frauenhofer MP3-codec was very much a Windows-only thing.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jzzskijj 12y ago
During the last three years I have installed Handbrake twice to convert a just created WMV to H.264/AAC. On both occasions Handbrake just failed to do anything for the file and I ended up uninstalling it. Later I created a kilometer long ffmpeg command line and been happily creating files to be used with Flowplayer. Those files have been playing without any issues on iOS, Android, Windows, Linux and MacOSX. I wonder why this Windows Live Movie Maker output turned out to be problematic for Handbrake, but on the other hand now I haven't needed to start any video conversion GUI for a long time.

higherpurpose 12y ago

HandBrake uses HTTPS, but Sourceforge doesn't...great.

tokenizerrr 12y ago
https://handbrake.fr/checksums.php https://handbrake.fr/checksums.php
- pokoleo 12y ago
  This ~prevents people from modifying the binary that you download, but doesn't prevent them from knowing that you downloaded it.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Going to the Handbrake site is a good clue (plus seeing a stream of a few MBs), and HTTPS doesn't protect them from knowing that, since they need to be the only site on that IP and/or use SNI, which sends the hostname in plaintext.
  - akerl_ 12y ago
    You realize that HTTPS doesn't hide what sites you visit, of course?
    - JosephRedfern 12y ago
      But it hides the HTTP request itself - Sourceforge hosts thousands of different projects, if served over HTTPS it'd be considerably harder to tell which download had been requested.
      - dhbanes 12y ago
        I'm pretty sure an HTTPS GET request to http[s]://iweb.dl.sourceforge.net/project/handbrake/0.10.0/HandBrake-0.10.0-MacOSX.6_GUI_x86_64.dmg would be pretty easy to identify as a HandBrake download. The resource requested is not hidden.

quink 12y ago

While still waiting for Daala I've already started encoding my videos in H.265 separately from handbrake, using mplayer. It's been going very well, H.265 will be awesome once it really starts hitting the mainstream. The bitrates are magically small and x265 is pretty fast. mkv container and Opus audio.

voltagex_ 12y ago
I realise this is subjective but how's the quality of x265? What's the encoding speed like in comparison to x264?
- kristofferR 12y ago
  It's good for bitrate starved files, but x264 is actually still more efficient for transparent encodes. x265 currently can't handle noise very well. x265 is also much slower than x264, but it's getting faster all the time.
  - gillianseed 12y ago
    >It's good for bitrate starved files, but x264 is actually still more efficient for transparent encodes. x265 currently can't handle noise very well. Yes this is my impression as well from the tests I've made. >x265 is also much slower than x264, but it's getting faster all the time. It will remain slower than x264 though, it uses more cpu consuming algorithms in order to cram out more 'quality per bit', that said it likely has a lot of performance improvements left to do.
    - xooyoozoo 12y ago
      >It will remain slower than x264 though, it uses more cpu consuming algorithms in order to cram out more 'quality per bit' At an abstract level, HEVC is AVC + refinement + new algorithms. Conforming bitstreams aren't required to use all or even most features, so in the long-term, I don't see why an HEVC encoder can't be a simple, straightforward superset of x264 (i.e. same speed for same quality).

1ris 12y ago

Still no opus?

marco1 12y ago

XMedia Recode [1] can do all this as well. Looks quite similar as well, by the way. But of course, it's not open-source, while Handbrake is. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMedia_Recode http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMedia_Recode

Zeebrommer 12y ago
Experts estimate that there are approximately millions [0] of AV converters around. At least, in my experience. [0] not really

cheng1 12y ago

Love the software. However, still can't do batch convert on a OS? You can convert a whole folder with a few clicks in the Windows version.

bphogan 12y ago
Maybe I don't understand what you want to do, but for at least 3 years I've been able to load a video clip in, set up the settings, add to queue, load video, add to queue, repeat. Then process the whole queue overnight.
- cheng1 12y ago
  You can add the whole folder at once and use that "Add all titles to queue" button.
siilats 12y ago
It can batch convert a whole Folder without having to add individual files and always has been. One of the worst ui choices for it though, there is a well hidden menu item called add all. Took me forever to find it
- cheng1 12y ago
  I found it. Thanks!
OmS78 12y ago
there are other more professional software out there for automated workflow. An example of this is: http://www.telestream.net/episode/overview.htm http://www.telestream.net/episode/overview.htm
hobbsy 12y ago
check out this script by Don Melton: https://github.com/donmelton/video-transcoding-scripts https://github.com/donmelton/video-transcoding-scripts

rossy 12y ago

> In addition, we have added the FDK AAC encoder for Windows and Linux as a optional compile-time option. It's a shame that libfdk-aac is also GPL incompatible. It's hands down the best free AAC encoder, but a version of FFmpeg/libav/Handbrake that's compiled against it is not allowed to be distributed.

Igglyboo 12y ago
would distributing a shell script that automated that install/compile process be legal?
- feld 12y ago
  Yes it's called FreeBSD ports :-) (Not sure if this is an option, but could be easily added)

ulfw 12y ago

"QSV is only supported on Windows" "libav AAC encoder as the new default for Windows" "HandBrake now offers BiCubic scaling on Windows via OpenCL" Sad that the Mac doesn't seem to get many of the goodies anymore.

astrange 12y ago
OS X's built-in AAC encoder is the best available, so it doesn't need a replacement. On the other hand, QSV is entirely outclassed by x264 quality-wise, and I could only recommend it for heat/battery power savings (useful for AirPlay Mirroring, not so much for DVD backups). It is odd that OpenCL programs wouldn't work, but that can't be much more, uh, work. I think the addition of NLMeans is interesting, since that filter is so slow I've only ever used it for photo processing.
- galad87 12y ago
  The OpenCL code works on mac too, but it's not available in th e GUI due to a corner width/height case in which the downscale quality gets hideous. HandBrake has got no active developer working on the OpenCL code anymore, so it will stay as it is until someone comes and fixes it.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

jmnicolas 12y ago

Handbrake could really use some TLC on the GUI. It's so confusing (at least for me) that I was only using it in CLI mode. This ended up being a good thing : I made a script to only convert at night when electricity is cheaper.

Zeebrommer 12y ago

At times I do need an audio/video converter, and it is always a bit of a pain sifting trough all the dubious and low quality freeware programs. Although Handbrake is not really dubious, last time I tried it wasn't very user friendly or easy either. Anyone know why it seems to be hard to make a nice, easy 'convert arbitrary format to something commonplace' program? And since this gets upvoted, is Handbrake considered the current standard?

anomaly_ 12y ago
Adapter (http://www.macroplant.com/adapter/ http://www.macroplant.com/adapter/) could be what you're looking for
ubercow13 12y ago
You could try just using ffmpeg (depending on your definition of easy). In most instances it will simply be a case of something like ffmpeg -i input -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -c:a libfdk_aac output.mkv
- Igglyboo 12y ago
  I second this, I bet most of those freeware programs are just shitty GUIs around ffmpeg anyway. I doubt the developers of those programs care about GPL violations either.
jason46 12y ago
It has a gui with presets I thought was straightforward and a good cli that can be used with batch files. For free software I think it does a good job, if you want to split hairs the contrast in very dark scenes gets "blotchy".

xfalcox 12y ago

Hey guys, someone has a good list of presets to share?

pkroll 12y ago
You'll have to spend a great deal of time to beat the presets already used by Handbrake/x264, and you'll only be able to do it on a particular clip. There's a good article[1] on the presets and how they impact quality, which lead me to using slow or slower for pretty much everything. [1] http://www.videoquality.pl/preset-settings-x264-quality-compression-speed-test/ http://www.videoquality.pl/preset-settings-x264-quality-comp...

jcslzr 12y ago

VidCoder > Handbrake

KevinEldon 12y ago
"VidCoder is a DVD/Blu-ray ripping and video transcoding application for Windows. It uses HandBrake as its encoding engine." -- 1st sentence on VidCoder's site I think you mean VidCoder has a better interface for HandBrake on Windows then HandBrake? I haven't had any problems w/ HandBrake's UI on Windows, but I keep it pretty simple so maybe if you want to do more complex things VidCoder is better.

Yadi 12y ago

This is very interesting! I'm using AWS elastic transcoder, but this as an AMI could be cool too, any thoughts on going that way?