HandBrake - AAC Encode Change

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HandBrake
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HandBrake - AAC Encode Change

Post by HandBrake »

Please be aware that we can no longer distribute HandBrake with FDK-AAC.

What does this mean?

For Mac, it means no change. HandBrake on Mac has used Core Audio for a number of years which supports both AAC and HE-AAC and good quality output.

For Windows and Linux, the default is now once again the LibAV AAC encoder.
  • It does not support HE-AAC.
  • The quality of this encoder is lacking in comparison to FDK but is passable for most.
Why the change?

There is a dispute about whether the FDK license is GPL compatible or not. Unfortunately due to a copyright complaint from ffmpeg and the disputed nature of the FDK AAC encoder license we are no longer able to provide it.

What next?

We are looking into upgrading LibAV to get further improvements in their AAC encoder. Hopefully it will eventually become on-par with FDK.

We are not able to provide this as a "plugin" as this would still cause license issues. We are also not able to provide "Core Audio" on windows as it is a proprietary library and not an operating system component.

New Release Status

Nightly Builds => No longer include FDK-AAC
Release Builds => Please download 0.10.5 or later.

If you want a "non-free" (as in, GPL-Incompatible) version of HandBrake, you can compile from source with --enable-fdk. (Be warned: This is not an easy process, especially for the windows build)

Can I still distribute older versions of HandBrake?

Please be aware that if you are distributing any release prior to 0.10.5, you must cease doing so now.
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