HandBrake

HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded DVD to MPEG-4 converter. This software application therefore lets you compress DVDs so that they take less space on a hard disk.

HandBrake is a console based (command-line interface) tool, although there is some development in progress to provide a graphical user interface under Linux.

The application requires many switches and variables to begin the conversion of a DVD to an MPEG video file. The hbencoder script was written to make encoding files a little bit easier for Linux users on the command line.

HandBrake 0.9.3

Price
Free to download
Size
1.9MB
License
GNU GPL
Developer
Eric Petit, Laurent Aimar, John Allen, Joe Crain, Damiano Galassi, and others.

Website
handbrake.m0k.org

System Requirements
liba52 (AC3 decoding)
libavcodec (picture cropping, scaling and deinterlacing, MPEG-4 encoding)
libdvdcss (CSS decryption)
libdvdread (DVD navigation)
libfaac (AAC encoding)
libmp3lame (MP3 encoding)
libmp4v2 (MP4 muxing)
libmpeg2 (MPEG-2 decoding)
libogg (OGM muxing)
libsamplerate (audio resampling)
libvorbis (Vorbis encoding)
libx264 (H264 encoding)
libxvidcore (MPEG-4 encoding)
Support Sites:
HandBrake Guide, HandBrake Forum
Selected Reviews:
CNet

Features include:

Supported sources:
- Any DVD-like source: VIDEO_TS folder, DVD image or real DVD (encrypted or unencrypted, but protection methods other than CSS are not supported and must be handled externally with third-party software), and some .VOB and .TS files
- PAL or NTSC
- AC-3, DTS, LPCM or MPEG audio tracks
Outputs:
- File format: MP4, MKV, AVI or OGM
- Video: MPEG-4 or H.264 (1 or 2 passes or constant quantizer/rate encoding)
- Audio: AAC, MP3, Vorbis or AC-3 pass-through (supports encoding of several audio tracks)
Misc features:
- Chapter selection
- Basic subtitle support (burned into the picture)
- Integrated bitrate calculator
- Picture deinterlacing, cropping and scaling
- Grayscale encoding

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HandBrake also features in our 'Linux Equivalents to Windows Software' section. The category selector below allows you to filter the different types of software included in that separate article.