HandBrake is a very popular and well regarded software tool for video transcoding. In the developers' own words, the program is designed for "converting video from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs". Even if you have never had a need to transcode video, you might well have heard of HandBrake as it is a popular and key component of many a tech site's CPU benchmarking suite. For example HEXUS used HandBrake, alongside the likes of Cinebench, and wPrime to test the Intel Core i7-7700K (14nm+ Kaby Lake) sample we reviewed earlier this month.
Over Christmas the developers of Handbrake reached a key milestone. After being in development for 13 years the transcoding program has reached version 1.0.0. This multi-platform tool (available for Windows, Mac, and Linux) started off as a simple DVD ripping tool for Jean-Louis Gassée's BeOS.
As appropriate for a major milestone release, the HandBrake team has published a rather long list of highlights for version 1.0.0. There are "completely overhauled official presets" for transcoding compatibility with various devices and the web, new video encoding libraries for various formats (like VP9), and quality settings (you want x256 in 12-bit?), assembly code optimisations of various encoding routines, updated and new third party library support, a new online documentation resource for users, and many bug fixes and improvements program-wide.
You can read through the 1.0.0 release blog post notes for a fuller list of improvements and fixes plus specific fixes on your transcoding platform of choice. You can download the new program direct from the HandBrake site and the source code, if you are so inclined, via Github.
