News

HandBrake 1.3.0 Released

Saturday, November 9, 2019

“All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can’t get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a hammer.” —IBM Manual, 1925

The HandBrake Team is pleased to announce the release of HandBrake 1.3.0. This release includes a redesigned queue interface, new presets for the PS4 Pro and Discord, support for Ultra HD Blu-ray discs (without copy protection), AV1 decoding, WebM container support, many new and updated translations, and much more.

If you happen to discover any reproducible bugs or issues, please tell us about them on our GitHub issue tracker. You can also get in touch on our IRC support channel.

Upgrade Notice

Before updating, please make sure there are no pending encodes in the Queue. If you are currently using HandBrake older than version 1.0.0, please also make note of any custom presets you have created, as they may not be compatible with newer versions.

Release Highlights

All platforms

General

- HandBrake is now translated into many more languages
- Redesigned queue UI
- Removed Windows Mobile presets
- See the list of compatible replacements on GitHub
- Improved log output by silencing many lines at standard log level
- Improved quality of Gmail presets slightly
- Added Playstation 2160p60 4K Surround preset (supports PS4 Pro)
- Added Discord and Discord Nitro presets

Video

- Updated Intel Quick Sync Video to use Direct3D 11 API
- Updated minimum title scan duration to only apply to disc-based sources like Blu-ray and DVD
- Improved detection of MPEG-1 video in program streams
- Improved interface to FFmpeg avfilter and color handling
- Improved Nvidia NVENC constant quality encoding slightly by not setting qmin and qmax
- Replaced pp7 Deblock filter with FFmpeg Deblock filter
- Added support for reading Ultra HD Blu-ray discs (without copy protection)
- Added support for reading AV1 via libdav1d
- Added encoding to WebM container format
- Added Chroma Smooth filter (CLI only)
- Added zero-copy path for Intel QSV encoding removed in a previous release
- Added support for Intel QSV low power encoding (lowpower=1)
- Added support for AMD VCE encoding on Linux via Vulkan
- Added ability to select x265 encoder level and Fast Decode tune

Audio

- Updated audio resampling code to use FFmpeg swresample instead of libsamplerate
- Added source audio bit rate to tracks list
- Added ability to select unknown language tracks
- Added automatic track name pass through

Subtitles

- Added ability to import external SSA/ASS subtitles
- Added ability to select unknown language tracks
- Added automatic track name pass through

Command line interface

- Added additional unit aliases to --start-at and --stop-at, notably seconds and frames

Build system

- HandBrake now builds with libnuma on Linux
- Fixed Python bytestrings causing newlines to be ignored in build output
- Fixed Xcode ignoring make jobs parameter and utilizing all CPU cores (macOS only)
- Updated configure to enable most hardware encoders by default where appropriate by platform
- Updated all scripts for compatibility with Python 3
- Updated mac-toolchain-build script with newer tool versions many improvements
- Updated mingw-w64-build script with mingw-w64 6.0.0, GCC 9.2, and many improvements
- Improved compatibility with GCC 9 and recent Clang releases
- Improved compatibility with recent Xcode releases (macOS only)
- Improved host/build semantics
- Improved namespace isolation
- Improved handling of all options passed to configure
- Improved configure help output
- Improved detection of missing executable dependencies during configure
- Added support for building on NetBSD
- Added --harden configure parameter to enable buffer overflow protections
- Added --sandbox configure parameter to enable sandbox build target on macOS
- Added --enable-gtk4 configure parameter to build with GTK 4 instead of GTK 3
- Added summary of build options to configure output
- Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements

Third-party libraries

- Removed libraries
  - libsamplerate (audio resampling)
- Updated libraries
  - AMF 1.4.9 (AMD VCE encoding)
  - bzip2 1.0.8 (general)
  - FDK AAC 2.0.1 (AAC audio encoding, must compile from source)
  - FFmpeg 4.2.1 (decoding and filters)
  - FreeType 2.10.1 (subtitles)
  - Fribidi 1.0.7 (subtitles)
  - HarfBuzz 2.6.4 (subtitles)
  - Jansson 2.12 (JSON architecture)
  - libbluray 1.1.2 (Blu-ray decoding)
  - libdav1d 0.5.1 (AV1 decoding)
  - libdvdnav 6.0.1 (DVD decoding)
  - libdvdread 6.0.2 (DVD decoding)
  - libiconv 1.16 (character encoding support)
  - libmfx (Intel QSV support)
  - libogg 1.3.4 (Xiph codecs support)
  - libopus 1.3.1 (Opus audio encoding)
  - libvorbis 1.3.6 (Vorbis audio encoding)
  - libvpx 1.8.1 (VP8/VP9 video encoding)
  - libxml2 2.9.9 (general)
  - nv-codec-headers 9.0.18.1 (Nvidia NVENC encoding)
  - x265 3.2.1 (H.265/HEVC video encoding)

Linux

- Fixed slider control not showing complete values
- Updated translations (levels of completeness vary):
  - Czech
  - Chinese
  - French
  - German
  - Italian
  - Japanese
  - Korean
  - Norwegian
  - Russian
  - Spanish
  - Thai
- Added translations (levels of completeness vary):
  - Afrikaans
  - Basque
  - Croatian
  - Dutch
  - Polish
  - Portuguese
  - Romanian
  - Slovak
  - Swedish
  - Turkish
  - Ukrainian
- Added Intel QSV support to Flatpak (requires additional plugin installation)
- Added ability to double-click to edit audio track settings
- Added options to open encode log and log directory to actions menu on queue window
- Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements

Mac

- HandBrake now requires OS X 10.11 El Capitan or later
- HandBrake is now sandboxed and uses the macOS hardened runtime
- Updated priority for low-priority threads on macOS to avoid potential stalls in future macOS
- Updated translations:
  - German
- Added translations:
  - French
  - Italian
  - Russian
- Added preference to disable preview image on summary tab
- Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements

Windows

- Improved browse dialog recently used to fallback to parent directory
- Improved preferences layout
- Improved auto naming collision behavior and file overwriting
- Added preference to test selected notification sound
- Added preference to perform when done action immmediately without countdown
- Added preference to disable preview image on summary tab
- Added hardware.enabled option to portable.ini
- Added dark theme for Windows 10
- Added queue import/export removed in a previous release
- Added new low battery level and disk space safety measures
  - Encoding jobs automatically pause when battery level is low, system sleep is allowed, and jobs resume when power is restored
  - Encoding jobs automatically pause when disk space drops to critical levels
- Added translations (levels of completeness vary):
  - French
  - German
  - Chinese
  - Korean
  - Russian
  - Spanish
  - Turkish
- Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements

Download HandBrake 1.3.0

HandBrake 1.3.0 Documentation

[ Comments ] can be discussed on our community forums.

HandBrake 1.2.0 Released

Saturday, December 22, 2018

“It’s hardware that makes a machine fast. It’s software that makes a fast machine slow.” —Craig Bruce

The HandBrake Team is pleased to announce the release of HandBrake 1.2.0. This release includes improved support for opening sources previously unreadable; new official presets for Amazon Fire and Google Chromecast devices; AMD VCE, Nvidia NVENC, and Apple VideoToolbox hardware-accelerated video encoding; Touch Bar support on macOS; Dark Mode support on macOS 10.14 Mojave; initial localization support on Mac and Windows including German translation; and much more.

If you happen to discover any reproducible bugs or issues, please tell us about them on our GitHub issue tracker. You can also get in touch on our IRC support channel.

Upgrade Notice

Release Highlights

All platforms

General

- Switched core decoding library from Libav to FFmpeg
  - Fixes numerous sources previously unreadable or otherwise broken
  - Facilitates a number of the improvements and features in this release and planned for the future
- Removed deprecated Legacy presets
  - See the list of compatible replacements on GitHub
- Updated official presets to use stereo instead of DPL2 mixdown
  - Avoids potential spatial positioning issues with the current DPL2 algorithm and wide pans in source material
  - Limited in impact since DPL2 decoding has not been in widespread use for years
- Updated official presets descriptions to revise compatibility and mention recently released devices
- Updated official presets to rename Fire TV to Amazon Fire
- Added Amazon Fire 720p30 and Chromecast 1080p60 presets
- Added {creation-date} and {creation-time} to automatic file naming

Video

- Fixed an issue decoding Blu-ray titles where the aspect ratio is unknown (assume 16:9)
- Fixed an issue encoding video with very short frame durations (less than 0.00285s or greater than 350 FPS)
- Improved extradata handling to accommodate all codecs
- Added support for decoding TIFF/LZMA video

Audio

- Fixed potential decoding issue for audio lacking an explicit channel layout (intelligently guess the layout)
- Fixed a potential crash during audio probe
- Improved resampling to allow dithering for all codecs (only where necessary)
- Improved quality of the default AAC encoder on non-Mac platforms (FFmpeg AAC), no longer experimental
- Improved bit rate constraints to allow Opus as low as 6 kbit/s per channel
- Added support for up to 7.1 channel AAC encoding (note that FDK AAC/HE-AAC do not support 6.1)
- Added support for E-AC3 audio in MP4 container
- Added Speex audio decoder

Subtitles

- Fixed a potential crash where an SRT file cannot be opened
- Added support for SRT files using periods instead of commas to delineate fractions

Command Line Interface

- Fixed inability to override preset subtitles burn setting (native and none are now valid values for --subtitle-burned)

Build system

- Fixed Linux packaging with an out-of-tree build directory
- Fixed Windows graphical interface build script signing tool location
- Removed --enable-local-* and associated contrib libraries; please see the documentationfor dependencies help
- Updated to mingw-w64-build 4.1.0 with gcc 7.3.0, continuous output (keep alive), and miscellaneous improvements
- Improved support for building with Xcode 10
- Improved support for building on FreeBSD 11, 12, and 13
- Improved Flatpak packaging for Linux (numerous fixes and improvements, no longer experimental)
- Improved configure.py to always use the Python executable found by configure
- Added script for creating Flatpak manifests
- Added support for selecting a compiler via the CC environment variable
- Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements

Third-party libraries

- Removed libraries
  - Libav 12.3 (decoding and filters)
  - yasm 1.3.0
- Updated libraries
  - libopus 1.3 (Opus audio encoding)
  - x264 157 r2935 (H.264/AVC video encoding)
  - x265 2.9 (H.265/HEVC video encoding)
- New libraries
  - FFmpeg 4.1 (decoding and filters)
  - liblzma (xz) 5.2.4 (LZMA video decoding, e.g. TIFF)
  - libspeex 1.2.0 (Speex audio decoding)

Linux

- Fixed Blu-ray title name being set to device name (e.g. sr0) when scanning raw devices
- Fixed Blu-ray default destination file names to no longer include MPLS number
- Fixed an issue with queue state not being updated properly on reload
- Fixed various issues importing presets
- Updated most translations
- Added initial support for GTK 4
- Added ability to customize activity window font size and increased default from 7 to 8
- Added destination overwrite protection (append number to file name on conflict)
- Added {source-path} to automatic path setting
- Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements

Mac

- HandBrake now requires OS X 10.10 Yosemite or later
- Removed preferences option to show the advanced tab (deprecated and slated for removal)
- Fixed minor display issues on macOS 10.14 Mojave
- Fixed queue toolbar icon not updating
- Removed Growl in favor of native system notifications
- Updated Sparkle automatic update library
- Improved handling of invalid presets
- Improved layout to better support localization
- Improved preview border alignment on high density displays
- Improved automatic naming to avoid updating when unrelated settings change
- Improved criteria for showing destination overwrite warnings
- Improved stop encoding confirmation dialog
- Improved notifications to no longer play sounds when alerts are disabled
- Added initial localization support and German translation
- Added initial support for VideoToolbox hardware-accelerated encoding
- Added support for Dark Mode on macOS 10.14 Mojave (new Dark Mode toolbar icons require building with Xcode 10 on Mojave)
- Added Touch Bar support to various windows and dialogs
- Added Finder progress bar to files currently encoding
- Added Show Source in Finder to queue contextual menu (renamed Show in Finder to Show Destination in Finder)
- Added validation for custom filter parameters
- Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements

Windows

- HandBrake now requires .NET Framework 4.7.1 or later (installer offers download if missing)
- Fixed mixdown selection where the specified mixdown in the selected preset is not available
- Fixed audio sample rate of 48 kHz being selected where Auto was the specified behaviour
- Removed preferences option to show the advanced tab (deprecated and slated for removal)
- Removed options menu from queue in favour of contextual menu
- Improved layout to better support localization
- Improved error handling when adding items to the queue
- Improved multi-instance queue recovery to avoid loading queue files from the wrong instance
- Improved filters layout and controls
- Improved video quality slider by allowing it to grow with window size and setting x264/x265 granularity to 0.5
- Improved SRT import default browse location (open source video location)
- Improved keyboard shortcuts by making Ctrl-S open the destination save dialog (start encode is now Ctrl-E)
- Added additional keyboard shortcuts for various actions
- Added initial localization support and German translation
- Added support for AMD VCE and Nvidia NVENC hardware-accelerated encoders
- Added automatic queue archiving and option to select an archived queue for recovery (archives are removed after 7 days)
- Added support for recovering specific queue files on start using --recover-queue-ids=
- Added additional controls to passthru audio tracks to configure audio fallback parameters
- Added ability to drag and drop SRT subtitles files onto the main window
- Added option to disable preview image on summary tab
- Added option to disable checking for update on start in portable mode
- Added stop encoding confirmation dialog
- Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements

Download HandBrake 1.2.0

HandBrake 1.2.0 Documentation

[ Comments ] can be discussed on our community forums.

HandBrake 1.1.2 Released

Sunday, September 9, 2018

"A Fallacy of Software: If it works, and we don't change anything, it will keep working." —Jessica Kerr

The HandBrake Team is pleased to announce the release of HandBrake 1.1.2. This patch / bug fix release remedies issues reported with the 1.1.0-1.1.1 releases.

If you happen to discover any reproducible bugs or issues, please tell us about them on our GitHub issue tracker. You can also get in touch on our IRC support channel.

Upgrade Notice

Release Notes

All platforms

General

- Fixed Blu-ray title name where reading from raw device
- Improved handling of broken units in Blu-ray source (skip and continue reading)

Video

- Fixed rare crash related to preview images, anamorphic, and default preset values
- Fixed jitter produced by 59.94 fps to 29.97 fps frame rate conversion

Audio

- Fixed duration of silence buffers (may improve audio/video sync for some sources)

Build system

- Fixed linker warning by setting libvpx target to minimum supported macOS version
- Fixed build failure with old GTK versions
- Miscellaneous Flatpak-related fixes and improvements

Third-party libraries

- Updated libraries (necessary to pull in needed bug fixes)
- libdvdread 6.0.0 (DVD decoding)
- libdvdnav 6.0.0 (DVD decoding)

Linux

- Fixed potential crash where $HOME directory is missing
- Fixed legacy preferences causing preset window being shown at every launch
- Fixed preset name and menu display on Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr
- Fixed default destination file name for Blu-ray source to not include MPLS number
- Fixed queue reloading in Flatpak sandbox
- Fixed toolbar icons alignment and use correct art for lower pixel density
- Updated most translations

Mac

- Fixed menu item and tooltip strings related to selection behavior
- Fixed crash where presets file contains invalid UTF-8

Windows

- Fixed incorrect track selection behaviours on audio and subtitle tabs
- Fixed creating an unneeded HandBrake Team directory in the user's Roaming directory
- Improved path handling when opening a source directory from the queue
- Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements

Download HandBrake 1.1.2

HandBrake 1.1.2 Documentation

[ Comments ] can be discussed on our community forums.