The HandBrake Team has released HandBrake 1.9.0, a significant update to the popular open-source video transcoder. The update brings a variety of new features and improvements for all platforms, including Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Table of Contents
What is HandBrake?
HandBrake is a free and open-source video transcoder that converts video from nearly any format to modern, widely supported codecs. You can use Handbrake to make videos that work on many devices, such as mobile phones, tablets, TV media players, and computers.
HandBrake works with most common video files, including those created by consumer and professional video cameras, mobile devices, game and computer screen recordings, and DVD and Blu-ray discs.
What's New in HandBrake 1.9.0?
General Improvements
- Intel QSV VVC decoder: The update adds support for Intel QSV VVC (hardware) video decoding.
- AV1 screen content coding: You can now enable AV1 screen content coding (SCC) on the Intel Lunar Lake QSV AV1 encoder.
- Lossless VP9 encoding: The update adds support for lossless VP9 encoding.
- Duplicate Blu-ray titles: HandBrake now includes a preference to keep duplicated Blu-ray titles.
- Max Duration of Scan titles: The update adds support for Max Duration of Scan titles for disc-based sources.
Audio Enhancements
- ALAC encoder: The update adds the ALAC encoder.
- Vorbis passthru: HandBrake 1.9.0 adds Vorbis passthru.
- Improved DTS audio profiles: The update improves the scanning of DTS audio profiles.
Subtitle Improvements
- Improved burn-in quality: HandBrake 1.9.0 improves the quality of subtitles burn-in.
- Video corruption fix: The update fixes a rare video corruption issue that could occur when burning in subtitles.
Platform-Specific Updates
- Linux: Fixes issues related to power save options, queue stopping, chapter name saving, and presets.
- Mac: Adds Range Limit controls, fixes a VideoToolbox HEVC multi-pass issue, includes bug fixes, and adds a Swedish translation.
- Windows: Adds Range Limit controls, support for DirectX-based video decoding, support for the AV1 Media Foundation encoder on ARM devices, a "Start Later" option for the Queue Window, performance improvements for the filter pipeline on ARM devices, bug fixes, and a Swedish translation.
Updated Libraries
HandBrake 1.9.0 includes updated libraries for various components, including video encoding and decoding, subtitles, preview image compression, and more.
Upgrade HandBrake
The new version will be available in the default repositories in a couple days. You may need to wait a little longer. If you don't want to wait, simply download the latest version from HandBrake GitHub releases page and manually install it.
Before updating to HandBrake 1.9.0, ensure that there are no pending encodes in the queue. Back up any custom presets and app preferences, as they may not be compatible with newer versions.
Windows users need to install Microsoft .NET Desktop Runtime version 8.0. You can download this from Microsoft's website.
HandBrake 1.9.0 is a major update that offers a range of new features and improvements for video encoding. The update is available for Linux, Mac, and Windows. Go get it now!
