Software update: HandBrake 0.10 beta 1

The first beta release of HandBrake version 0.10 has been released. Available for Windows, Linux and OS X, this open source and multithreaded program can convert movie files into video files in h264 or mpeg4 image format and aac, ac3, mp3 or Ogg Vorbis sound format. The final of version 0.10 should be available sometime in the coming months and contains a lot of changes. The most important are listed for you below:

core

• Intel QuickSync Video Encode / Decode support.
  • Windows only currently. We hope to bring this to Linux user in the future.
• DXVA Hardware Decode support (Experimental)
  • Windows Only.
  • Suitable only for slower machines so disabled in preferences by default.
• Choice of Scalers
  • Lanczos
    • HandBrakes? default scaler.
  • Bicubic (OpenCL) (Experimental)
    • Currently only available in OpenCL form so requires a AMD or Intel GPU supporting OpenCL 1.1 or later. Nvidia GPUs are not currently supported.
    • When downscaling, up to 5% performance improvement can be achieved. No benefit when not down scaling.
    • Small loss in quality over the Lanczos scaler.
• Denoise
  • hqdn3d filter now accepts individual settings for both chroma channels (Cr, Cb)
  • New NlMeans? denoiser. This is very slow, but results are significantly better than hqdn3d.
• presets
  • Added Windows Phone 8 Preset
• Updated Libraries
  • x264 r2431-ac76440
  • Libav v10.1
  • libbluray 0.5.0
• Libavformat is now used for muxing instead of mp4v2 and libmkv
  • “Large File Size” checkbox has now bee removed for mp4, as the new muxer will transition to 64bit files automatically.
  • mpeg2dec has also been replaced in favor of using libav
• The LibAV AAC encoder is now the default as FAAC has been removed.
  • This encoder is adequate for most, but until it improves a bit further, we have enabled support for the FDK-AAC encoder also.
    • This FDK option is a temporary measure until the LibAV encoder improves.
    • Note that FDK-AAC is much slower and will likely bottleneck the encode process, but will produce better quality audio.
• H.265 encoder (Experimental – available when compiled from source with –enable-x265)
  • Early build of the new x265 encoder. Enabled on Windows only currently. (Mac / Linux builds will have it enabled shortly)
  • Currently still some way off being ready for prime time. Useful for testing only at this stage.
• Added VP8 Encoder (using libvpx)
  • Available in MKV files only.
• Removed mcdeint deinterlace and decomb modes. This relied on the snow encoder in libav which has been was removed by upstream.
• Bug Fixes and Misc Improvements

Windows

• Accessibility / Usability Improvements
  • Added option to ‘Use System Colors’. The app should now be usable in a High Contrast mode.
  • Fixed Tab ordering to make the app more keyboard friendly.
• LibHB is now used for scanning instead of the CLI.
• Improved the layout and design of the Audio and Subtitle tabs.
  • Split buttons similar to the old 0.9.8 WinForms? GUI
  • Improved layout on the track list box to make better use of the space.
• Improvements to Auto-Naming feature.
• When Done
  • Added an option that will reset this to ‘Do nothing’ when the app is closed and restarted.
• presets
  • New ‘Presets’ Menu
  • Presets bar can now be hidden if it’s not wanted.
• Numerous bug fixes
  • Fixed the Issue in the source dropdown where the drive menu items did not work when clicked.
  • Numerous fixes in the Picture settings panel around resolution calculation.
  • Numerous fixes around the way Presets are loaded and saved, particularly around Picture settings.
  • Removed Growl for Windows support due to bugs and issues with this library that remain unfixed. Project appears abandoned.
  • Many misc other fixes.
• Windows XP is no longer supported. Windows Vista with Service Pack 2 or later is now a requirement.

mac

• Build system updates to compiled under OS X 10.9
• Automatic audio and subtitle track selection behaviors which can be stored per preset.
• Improvements to Auto-Naming feature.
• Misc UI ​​enhancements.
• Bug Fixes and Misc Improvements

Linux

• Automatic audio and subtitle track selection behaviors which can be stored per preset.
• Improvements to Auto-Naming feature.
• Batch Add to queue by list selection.
• Russian and Czech Translations
• Bug Fixes and Misc Improvements
• Requires GTK3

Command Line Interface

• Basic support for return codes from the CLI. (0 = No Error, 1 = Cancelled, 2 = Invalid Input, 3 = Initialization error, 4 = Unknown Error”)
• Bug Fixes and Misc Improvements