Handbrake 0.9.5

HandBrake is probably the oldest of our crop of conversion tools, having been around since 2003. And it's also one of the more specialised, being best at transcoding videos to run on Apple devices. The program can only export MP4 and MKV files, for example, and its output presets are mostly Apple related (iPod, iPhone, iPad and so on).

As long as your target device plays MP4 files, though (and most do), this doesn't have to be a major problem. And HandBrake does enable you to customise the video conversion process in many different ways, which could be appealing if you find the competition a little too basic.

Once you've selected your source files, for instance, you can of course choose the output resolution, video and audio codecs, frame rates and so on. But there are also options to crop the source footage, add subtitles, or include extra audio tracks. You can include chapter markers, or apply some useful cleanup filters (Detelecine, Decomb, Deinterlace, Denoise, Deblock). And real experts can access many low-level encoding and analysis details via the Advanced tab.

What you don't get here are spectacular conversion speeds, unfortunately: Handbrake's MP4 output performance remained resolutely average in our tests (although perhaps it could be improved if you spend time tuning the program's more advanced settings). Still, if you need lots of encoding options, and can live with the meagre selection of output formats, then Handbrake may still be a reasonable transcoding choice.

We liked

Many useful editing options and video filters, advanced encoding and analysis tweaks

We disliked

Only exports MP4 and MKV files, average conversion speeds

Rating 3/5

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