Get video on your iPod/PSP/anything else easily! (HandBrake)

Member Name: f1ndl0w

Product:	HandBrake
Date:	05/06/09 (121 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Does for free what most other companies charge for.

Disadvantages: None really.

HandBrake is like the VLC of media conversion, it accepts virtually any multimedia file, and will output it as virtually any other! It was originally designed as a tool for converting (unencrypted) DVD's to a video playable on your computer, iPod, or virtually anything else. Recently though it's excellent framework has been extended to support virtually any video input, making it infinitely more useful.

If the fact that it can convert any video isn't enough, add in the fact that it is cross platform, working seamlessly on Mac, Windows, and Linux. This means that the similar great interface is available everywhere, although for the purpose of this review I will be concentrating on the Mac version (which has a nice little bonus feature!).

Choosing a source let's you select which video file you want to convert, HandBrake will attempt to read any file you input, and then once it has processed it give you the relevant output options. If it is a DVD that you are converting then you are able to extract a specific title/chapter. By default HandBrake will attempt to open the "Main Title" (i.e. film), but the other options are useful if it is a TV series, or you want the additional extras. On Mac OS X if you have VLC installed then you are also able to convert encrypted (i.e. most commercial) DVD's without the need to mess around removing the copy protection first. This is a huge bonus as it removes many steps from the process, please note that on Linux this is also possible, but on windows requires some more software to remove the encryption.

Since converting video on any normal computer isn't exactly a speedy process, with it usually happening at just above real-time HandBrake is probably best-left running when you don't want to be doing any other CPU demanding work. Ideally you could leave it running overnight, allowing for your computer to "concentrate" on the job in hand. A useful feature which allows for you to do this is that HandBrake has a queue, whereby you can enter the details for video conversions and add them to the end of it, meaning that HandBrake will just churn through the video. Please note though that if you are converting from a DVD it must remain in the drive during the conversion process, so unfortunately you can't add it to the queue and remove the DVD, obviously with files already on your hard drive this isn't an issue.

Unlike many other video converter's you don't need to be a genius to figure out what all the options are, the developer's have been good enough to add in preset's for most devices imaginable, these are optimised to give the best quality for the specific device, meaning that it is a simple case of selecting your target device and hitting convert. Although for those of you who know your Weighted B-Frames from Pyramid B-Frames (I, personally, have no idea) there are options to configure all of these, and then save your perfect options as a new preset. Additional to these mind boggling options there are some for the rest of us, including the basic things like video codec, video dimensions, audio bit-rate, chapter markings (useful on DVD's), and subtitles. In addition to this you can customise the video quality in one of three ways, by setting a variable bit-rate, target file size, or constant quality rate. I tend not to adjust many of these options, as the presets produce good quality output, so see no need in trying to fix it myself.

HandBrake offer's the features that many companies try to charge you for (don't you just think Open Source software is great!?), admittedly on Windows DVD conversion is a bit more difficult, but it certainly isn't impossible. Overall an excellent piece of software, which keeps improving with every version!

Summary: Excellent software for converting your media.

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