The News

A Look into Handbrake

Photo of the main features of Handbrake, a converting software.

APPS & BOTS

Nowadays there’s a million different formats and codecs that are available for our usage. More and more softwares are being made to be able to support all available formats without issue, but what happens when you don’t have the right format? Say you want to edit a video or a song and yet the software you’re using doesn’t accept .wmv or .avi and instead asks for .mp4 or .mov? This is where programs like HandBrake come in. Here at the News, we’ll take a quick look at what HandBrake is and what it can do, especially for these kind of situations.

What is HandBrake? HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded DVD to MPEG-4. In simpler terms Handbrake is a software that allows you to convert videos from pretty much any available format to a few widely supported codecs and formats.

How much does it cost? HandBrake is free to use for all platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux)

What formats does it accept? For input sources it can process pretty much every format, files, DVDs or BluRays (as long as they don’t come with any copy protection). In terms of output, it can convert to .mp4 and .mkv, and can encode: H.265 (x265 and QuickSync), H.264 (x264 and QuickSync), H.265 MPEG-4 and MPEG-2, VP8, VP9 and Theora.

Does it do anything else? Yes, not only does it work for converting or ripping old DVDs, but it also comes with a lot of special features. Some of these features include chapter selection, picture deinterlacing, cropping and scaling, grayscale encoding and subtitle support. That means you can integrate subtitles into the actual video instead of having to use a different file while watching.