Handbrake: Open Source Video Transcoder

HandBrake is a cross-platform (Linux, OS X, Windows), multi-threaded video transcoding application. It's a free (GPL-licensed), open source tool that enables you to easily convert from nearly any format to the most often used codecs of today, thus making them useful on devices beyond your desktop computer. This article will give an overview of its features and then guide you through a typical use case. We will be using the Linux version of the program, but the differences across platforms are mostly cosmetic. Having said that, Mac users can take a look at the GUI in this brief article.

You wouldn't be using it if you didn't have something you want to convert, right? Worry not, you can feed Handbrake pretty much any sort of source - multimedia files, DVDs (including ISO images) or Blu-Ray discs. It should be noted that Handbrake does not handle copy protection - that's something you need to take care of in advance. Decryption is OS-specific and potentially legally messy, and since it's a tangential topic anyway, we won't cover it here.

As for output, you have several choices for audio, video and container formats. The audio and video encoders available depend on how Handbrake was compiled and what libraries (codecs) you have installed on your system, but most systems will have access to the full spectrum of available encoders. You can choose between the MP4 and MKV container formats, H.264, MPEG-4, MPEG-2 and Theora video encoders and AAC, MP3, AC3, Flac and Vorbis (OGG) audio encoders. You may also choose audio pass-thru, meaning the original audio will be preserved, which is very useful, especially if it's already of low quality.

In addition to this, Handbrake has several features that make it stand out from the competition, such as batch encoding (Add to Queue), chapter selection and markers, subtitle handling, choosing between Constant Quality or Average Bitrate encoding, video filters and live video preview.

An additional nicety about Handbrake is that nearly all options are explained in tooltips that appear if you hover with the cursor over a particular option, though a few of the explanations might seem overwhelming to casual users because of their sheer length. Finally, presets are present as well, enabling you to target a platform (device) of choice with a single click. You may, of course, edit these or add your own according to your needs.

Let's suppose you have a DVD you wish to encode. Click Source and select the VIDEO_TS folder. In this example, I'll be using my Fitzcarraldo DVD:

Notice how the Summary tab went from being greyed out to displaying information about the video. At this point, you may select one of the presets on the left and click Start - and that's it, the encoding will start and you can forget about it until it finishes. Handbrake will notify you when it's done, but this behaviour can be changed in Preferences under the General tab - you can choose between quitting the program, shutting down the computer, putting it to sleep or doing nothing at all. These come in handy in different situations - you don't want to shutdown when doing a quick encode of a video you recorded with your smartphone, but you might when batch processing entire seasons of shows overnight.

Of course, you probably want to adjust the options before starting. For example, you might wish to add subtitles, and this isn't covered by any of the presets. Pick a track and click the +Subtitle button to add them. Next, you have three options: Forced Only, Burned In and Default. Default makes that particular track the one displayed by default in your media player (MKV only; doesn't work on Apple devices), Burned In means the subtitles are written on top of the image permanently (hardsubbing) and Forced Only relates to subtitle tracks that display only during foreign language sections of the video. A reasonable choice here is to tick Default and leave the other two alone, unless you know there are reasons to do otherwise.

The Video tab exposes the options pertaining to the most important choice you have to make when using this application: which encoder to choose, and the closely related framerate and bitrate. Nothing too complicated, but there are certain (dis)advantages to each of them. When it comes to encoders, you'll most likely wish to go with H.264 (x264 is the name of the open source implementation of the standard) - it offers the best mix of quality and compression, and it's very feature-rich, as evidenced by the myriad of options that appear in the Advanced tab when it's selected.

The second choice here is between Constant Quality and Bitrate. Both can provide good results, but it's easier to select a level for CQ and leave it at that than fiddle with a bitrate, and the two-pass bitrate encoding takes a lot longer. The lower the number, the better the quality when it comes to x264, so if you're encoding a DVD, select 19 or 20 - these values give a good size to quality ratio.

Picture Settings will open a new window enabling you to set dimensions (aspect ratio, resolution, crop dimensions) and apply filters (denoise, deblock, etc.). If you check Show Preview, you can encode a small portion of the video to see what the final product will look like.

Audio options are rather self-explanatory - you pick an audio track, the encoder, a bitrate and the mix. If space isn't an issue, I'd advise you select the passthru option corresponding to the kind of audio in the source (in this example, AC3), as that both preserves quality and saves processing time. Once you're satisfied with everything, consider preserving your settings as a preset - I have a low and high quality preset for DVDs, for example.

When it comes to transcoding video, Handbrake has got you covered. Encode DVDs, re-encode files to make them smaller, tinker with the minutiae of x264, insert subs or extra audio tracks, select a single chapter to encode, enqueue an entire season of your favorite anime, and anything else you might think of - it's all there. However, this might be a moment to say what it isn't - it isn't a video editor, a video browser nor the sort of application that holds your hand and restrains you when you select some very silly combination of options. It is an advanced tool that is still simple to use and does its job well.