HandBrake is a free open source video converter that allows you to encode video files from DVD or any video format to MPEG-4 or H.264. It contains a wide range of presets that allow you to quickly convert video for further viewing on various mobile devices, such as Apple iPod, iPhone, iPad, AppleTV, Sony PSP, PS3, Microsoft Xbox 360, etc.

HandBrake supports working with different types of sources. For example, you can convert any DVD files, be it a VIDEO TS folder or just a DVD image, it can work with both PAL and NTSC standards.

You can work with formats that are supported by FFmpeg, if you want, you can work with DV files too. It is possible to convert video to MP4 and MKV, MPEG-4 and H.264 codecs are supported, if we consider audio standards, then here you can get AAC and AC-3, and without recoding. Additional features include support for working with subtitles, a good bitrate calculator, cropping is also present, you can scale the video.

HandBrake has a nice interface, after launching you will see the main window where all the main settings are made, in general you will not have to switch around the interface anymore. You can even crop the black bars around the movie to maximize the file size. Other features worth mentioning are chapter selection, basic subtitle support (burned into the picture) and grayscale encoding.

Please note that you will need to install the right codecs for the file type you want to convert, such as DivX, Xvid, OGM, 3ivx, etc. Handbrake supports any DVD-like source, such as VIDEO_TS folders, VOB, .TS files, DVD images, and actual DVDs. However, unencrypted protection methods, including CSS, are not supported internally and must be handled externally by third-party software and libraries.

Main Features

  • Supports most common media formats, as well as DVD or Blu-ray without copy protection.
  • Includes presets for the following devices: iPod, iPhone and iPod Touch, iPhone 4, iPad, Apple TV, etc.
  • Supports chapter selection and chapter bookmarks.
  • Adds subtitles to chapters.
  • Allows you to change video resolution.