HandBrake 0.9.3: Released!

[HandBrake]

"The trick is to combine your waking rational abilities with the infinite possibilities of your dreams. Because, if you can do that, you can do anything."

Download it now.

Sorry it's been so long, but we think you'll all agree this release of HandBrake was worth the wait. Where to begin?

Universal input
HandBrake is no longer limited to DVDs: it will now accept practically any type of video as a source. This massive enhancement was achieved by tapping into the power of libavcodec and libavformat from the FFmpeg project.

Linux GUI
There is now an official GTK graphical interface for Linux, available as a binary for Ubuntu. This is the real deal, interacting directly with HandBrake's core library instead of just putting a pretty face on a command line interface. It has full feature parity with the Mac interface.

Video quality
The x264 project has really come into its own this year, and HandBrake 0.9.3 integrates the latest improvements to the H.264 encoding library. Picture quality has enhanced dramatically through the use of psychovisual rate distortion and adaptive quantization, and there have been significant speed optimizations.

Audio flexibility
HandBrake now offers total control over multiple audio tracks.

No more internal DVD decryption
Yeah, we know, no one reading this is going "Oh wow, no more DVD decryption--what a great new feature!" but...deal.

HandBrake will dynamically load VLC's copy of libdvdcss if you have it in your Applications folder in Mac OS X, and if you're on Linux, and you want to live on the wild side, you can install libdvdcss on your system and get the same effect.

Translation of the last paragraph from nerdese:
We're not about to stop you from choosing to decrypt DVDs. If you're on a Mac, and you have VLC 0.9.x installed, you won't even notice the internal capability's gone. If you're on Linux, all you have to do is install a library.

Persistent queues
When queueing up a bunch of videos to encode, you need no longer fear a crash in HandBrake's graphical interfaces. Queued jobs are cached to disk for safekeeping between sessions.

New, better organized presets (Be sure to run "Update Built-In Presets" from the Presets menu!)
The presets are now "nested" in folders and have evolved. Notably, there is a new Apple "Universal" preset, designed to play and look good doing so on anything from an iPod Nano to an AppleTV.

There have been many changes to most of them. Please be aware that most presets now use different settings. This means most of them are not suited for benchmarking 0.9.3 against 0.9.2. For example, the AppleTV preset is slower because it is now quality based, and produces much more efficient output. The Normal preset uses psychovisual rate distortion. The High Profile presets use psychovisual trellising. All of these setting changes can influence encoding time and output file size.

For comparison purposes, there are several presets in the Apple->Legacy folder (the old iPod High-Rez, the old AppleTV, and the old iPhone presets) which remain unchanged since 0.9.2.

Audio-video synchronization
HandBrake should now keep lip-synch as well as a DVD player can.

Decomb filter
HandBrake now offers a decomb filter, in the style of AviSynth's. It is a deinterlacer that can be left on all the time without degrading picture quality, because it only deinterlaces video when it visibly needs to be.

Multi-threaded deinterlacing
The "Slow" and "Slower" filters, as well as the new decomb filter, will now take advantage of as many processors as you can throw at them.

"Same as source framerate" really is the same as the source framerate
HandBrake now, by default, passes through the exact video framerate of the source instead of smoothing to a constant rate, which could lead to frames being duplicated or dropped.

Theora video encoding
HandBrake now can encode video using the Theora codec.

Updated libraries
Besides x264, updated libraries include libsamplerate, libogg, xvidcore, libmpeg2, lame, faac, and ffmpeg's libavcodec, libavformat, and libswscale.

Massive improvements to all interfaces

As hard as it might be to believe, the changes listed above are only the tip of the iceberg. A much longer list is available, but even that is only a brief summary. There have been well over 600 changes to HandBrake's code base since 0.9.2, including hundreds of bug fixes, and a thorough log can be found on the Trac.

[Qynnix]

Congrats on this eagerly awaited release!

[load97]

Thanks for the really hard work guys. I think I'll really enjoy these new improvements.

[DavidH]

Thanks for all the hard work on a wonderful tool! It's appreciated by many people out there.

I just installed it and want to just mention one little thing I ran into. Be sure to make a backup of your user_presets.xml file before you install if you want to keep your own presets. The installer overwrites it with an empty one.

[jzietman]

So much has changed since 0.9.2 that your old settings likely aren't either as good or as efficient as they once were. I'd suggest either using a new preset (update the built-in presets!) or read around the forum and documentation to learn about the new options. Seriously, you can get much better results now.

[echohead]

any thoughts on CQR? ive been messing around with the percentage, and ive been able to lower it to around 55% without any noticeable quality loss.

[GoodOmens]

Yay for 0.9.3!

[Kashmar]

Awesome release! I've been 'svn up'ing for the last few months to check out the progress, and I must say you've outdone yourself. I'll leave the experimental code alone now.

[canvas]

Thank all stuff.
HandBrake-0.9.3-Win_GUI.exe, Is not Checksums replaced?
"1c2d55ea2fb024c1d7706b253c7cd2fa" is correct?

[s55]

1c2d55ea2fb024c1d7706b253c7cd2fa is the correct checksum

[canvas]

There are several people who are at a loss if the checksum is different.
Will you fix the checksum of the download page?

[s55]

Opps, My bad. I'll get that sorted

[fourmccs]

I love handbrake. It has always been my choice for DVD ripping and compressing. I appreciate your long hours of work to make a good product better. However the comment on no DVD decrypting. "just deal" ? Give me an explanation or say there is threat of a lawsuit I will gladly accept this. But "just deal" is like your parents saying "because I said so".

[dynaflash]

However the comment on no DVD decrypting. "just deal" ? Give me an explanation or say there is threat of a lawsuit I will gladly accept this.

Well, with all due respect it is what it is. You really don't have to "accept it" at all.

But "just deal" is like your parents saying "because I said so".

Yes, yes it is.

[Kashmar]

However the comment on no DVD decrypting. "just deal" ? Give me an explanation or say there is threat of a lawsuit I will gladly accept this.

Well, with all due respect it is what it is. You really don't have to "accept it" at all.

But "just deal" is like your parents saying "because I said so".

Yes, yes it is.

...word! (I hate a short, "meaningless" reply like this, but this reply is too good not to applaud.)

[fourmccs]

Well at least this was enough to make me smile. I at least know your thought process.

[fourmccs]

Well this resulted in a " [Censored] match' Sorry to disrupt your forum.

[jbrjake]

Give me an explanation or say there is threat of a lawsuit I will gladly accept this.

You are in no position to be demanding anything from any of us.

This is the problem with open source users, right here.

"Give me" this, "Say" that and "I will gladly accept." Can't even be bothered to qualify your imperative demands with a "please."

No one owes you a damned thing. Not an explanation, not internal DVD decrypting, not this forum, not the continued existence of HandBrake at all.

Maybe you should "gladly accept" that other people choose to put their time into something you want to use, and make it available to you, and support it for you, and just leave it at that, eh?

[nightstrm]

I vote this conversation be removed from the announcement thread!

[Polygon]

just give a reason. you took it out for SOME reason, whether it be legalities or something else. I highly doubt you took it (dvd decrypting) out just to anger handbrake users. I don't care if its in or not , libdecss or whatever does it fine, but still, having a reason would be nice.

[Kashmar]

If the next model car from [insert your current auto-manufacturer here] comes with a digital display speedometer instead of an old-fashioned analogue one, do you ask them why they changed it? Do we really need to know?

PS: I agree with nightstrm, this chat isn't much about the release anymore, it's about whether or not the devs should divulge their reasoning behind their decisions. I vote for a forking of the thread too.

[Deleted User 134]

Excellent news on this release guys, especially the universal input option -- this alone will make my life just that much easier. Thank you all so much for your hard, selfless work!

(And I know the reason why DVD decryption was removed: it's to prevent alien invasion!!!1!1)

[devburke]

I am curious as to why it was removed as well, but I don't think anyone should act like they owe us an answer. I'm just curious is all.

But anyway, as I understand it, if we have VLC installed, we can still rip (or I guess convert would be more correct, but you know what I mean) directly from the DVD, and if we don't want to install VLC, our only other options for converting DVDs is to use a program like MacTheRipper to rip the DVD and then convert in two separate processes. Is that right?

Again, this is NOT a complaint, I just want to make sure I understand correctly. I don't have VLC because I prefer Quicktime + Perian + Flip4Mac and it fits my needs, and ideally I'd prefer not to install VLC just for this functionality if there is another way to install only what Handbrake would need, without the entire program. So basically my purpose here is to ask the following questions (using OS X):

Is there a way to install only what Handbrake would need to convert DVDs directly rather than installing VLC in its entirety?
Is MTR the recommended DVD ripper, if not converting directly from DVD?
Roughly how long does ripping with MTR (or some other ripper) generally take?
If one rips first, then does the conversion process go more quickly than it would converting directly from the DVD (and if so, by how much?)?

Thanks for any answers I can get, and huge thanks to all the devs for continuing to make such a great app even better.

[s55]

But anyway, as I understand it, if we have VLC installed, we can still rip (or I guess convert would be more correct, but you know what I mean) directly from the DVD, and if we don't want to install VLC, our only other options for converting DVDs is to use a program like MacTheRipper to rip the DVD and then convert in two separate processes. Is that right?

correct

Is there a way to install only what Handbrake would need to convert DVDs directly rather than installing VLC in its entirety?

What you said above applies.

Is MTR the recommended DVD ripper, if not converting directly from DVD?

MTR can work well if it's Version 3 or above. Dtox works too.

Roughly how long does ripping with MTR (or some other ripper) generally take?

Not long. Less than half hour so long as the drive isn't rubbish.

If one rips first, then does the conversion process go more quickly than it would converting directly from the DVD (and if so, by how much?)?

Sometimes. Rubbish Drive can cause a significant slowdown if you have a high end processor that enjoys an all you can eat buffet. (say high end Dual or all quad cores)

[Japester]

Has anyone noticed any performance degradation? I'm running on a MacBook Air that under 0.9.2 used to do the first pass (2-pass encoding) of a 1-1/2-hour movie with tweaked iPod settings in 1 hour and now it's reporting 8 hours. Why is it taking 8 times as long to encode? I have created a new preset starting with the updated iPod built-in preset.