Software Update: HandBrake 0.9.1

HandBrake is a program that can convert DVD movies into video files in h264 or mpeg4 image format and aac, ac-3, mp3 or Ogg Vorbis sound format. Although the program was forked to MediaFork, the two groups of developers have reunited and will continue under the name HandBrake. Version 0.9.1 has recently been released for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows and includes the following announcement:

“Mistakes? We don’t make mistakes.”

We’re chagrined to announce the public release of HandBrake 0.9.1. Why chagrined? Because 0.9.0 wasn’t as stable as it should have been, something 0.9.1 rectifies.

This minor update squashes a number of glaring bugs. Most notably, HandBrake will no longer hang at the end of encoding MKV files with chapter markers. This means the Animation, Bedlam, Constant Quality Rate, Deux Six Quatre, Film, and Television presets are now usable.

Additional improvements:

• Impressive performance enhancements
• Significant interface prettification (Mac more than Win)
• Color subtitles now show up in color
• Changing dimensions in Picture Settings no longer causes a crash (Mac)
• Forced subtitle support
• More robust exception handling (Win)
• Closing the main window no longer causes HandBrake to crash (Mac)
• Using “Slow” deinterlacing no longer doubles the chapter count.
• MPEG Stream support is now case-insensitive (.VOB as well as .vob, etc) and more compatible
• No more error messages sent to standard out instead of standard error
• Bigger buffer for the activity log (Mac)
• Proper display or fading subtitles
• On-completion options to shutdown, suspend, etc (Win)
• “Same as source FPS” now works correctly when the end-credits of a progressive film are interlaced.
• Add-to-queue fixed (Win)
• Target size fixed for the umpteenth time (Mac)

…and assorted other changes.

As always, for the complete list of changes, see the track.