HandBrake – Free Video Converter

Many users are faced with the fact that the video files on the device are not saved in the format in which they would like to have them. To solve this situation, the free HandBrake program comes to the rescue – a converter that performs the so-called transcoding.

During this process, the video is converted to another format. Video encoding in HandBrake Video Converter will help the user solve problems in different situations.

For example, you want to play video files using a certain installed media player in the Windows operating system that does not provide the required codec (more precisely, a decoder) for the desired content in the original format. Problems happen even with popular formats, for example, support for MKV containers has been included in the operating system since Windows 10.

Changing the file format is also useful if you plan to transfer the video to a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet in order to play it there. Your device may not support a certain format. It is also worth paying attention to the fact that the size of the video file is of great importance due to limited disk space.

With the help of the converter tools, the original content can be converted to the desired format without quality loss, with a slight or noticeable quality loss, depending on the program settings.

Features of HandBrake Video Converter

HandBrake Converter is an open source program that runs on Windows, macOS and Linux operating systems.

The main features of the HandBrake program:

• Support for a large number of input video formats, including DVD, Blu-ray, MPEG, WMV, DV.
• Batch file conversion.
• Video preview.
• Subtitle usage – VobSub, CEA-608, SSA, SRT.
• Applying video filters.
• Built-in presets for various types of devices.
• Selecting and setting a custom configuration.

HandBrake supports the following output formats:

• File formats: MP4 (M4V), MKV and WebM.
• Video codecs: H.264 and H.265 (including support for hardware acceleration), MPEG-4 and MPEG-2, VP8, VP9 and Theora.
• Audio encoders: AAC/HE-AAC, MP3, FLAC, AC3, E-AC3, Opus and Vorbis.

The program sets a mandatory requirement: the minimum screen resolution on a PC is 1024×620.

You can download the HandBrake program to your computer from the official website of the developer. For downloading to a PC, regular, installation versions of the application, as well as a portable, portable version of the program are offered. It should be noted that in addition to other interface languages, HandBrake works in Russian.

Please note that HandBrake requires Windows 10 or Windows 11 to install. The current version of HandBrake is not supported on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. For older Windows operating systems, older versions of HandBrake are suitable, which can be downloaded from the link: https://handbrake.fr/old.php.

For the application to work, it is additionally necessary to install the .NET 6.0 Desktop Runtime (Microsoft Windows Desktop Runtime) runtime on the computer. The program itself will offer to go to the Microsoft website to install the required component into the system.

In this article, we will show you how to use HandBrake to convert video files to other formats or to compress videos.

Handbrake setting

The user interface of the first HandBrake window is not cluttered with tools. If you go to the tabs with numerous configuration settings, you will have to spend some time getting familiar with the program options.

 

Click on the “Settings” link in the lower left corner of the program window. In the “Settings” window, you can change the default settings of the program.

For example, in the “General” tab, in the “Path to Media Player” parameter, select the media player to preview the video. The default is VLC media player. Media Player Classic Home Cinema (MPC-HC) is also fully supported, and other media players can be used.

 

The Output Files tab lists the default output folder location. In the “MP4 file extension:” option, you can set the option to “Always use MP4” instead of “Automatic”, because the program almost always tries to use the “apple” M4V extension, instead of just MP4.

From the “When completed” tab, you can configure the behavior of the program after the video conversion is completed.

In the “Video” tab, encoding and decoding parameters are set.

In the Advanced tab, certain system settings are configured, and from the Reset tab, you can reset user settings and presets to default values.

HandBrake Features

In the “Select Source” window that opens after launching the application, you can drag (drop) a file or folder into a special area, or use other options:

• Optional Select Specific Title – Select a specific chapter on the DVD.
• Folder (Batch Scan) – Select a folder containing one or more files.
• File – add a video file.

After adding the file, the HandBrake program window will open with video encoding settings. Here is information about the source file with default parameters.

 

Other files or folders can be added from the window of an already open application. To do this, click on the “Open source” button.

The drop-down menu in the “Preset:” field contains conversion presets for various types of devices, providers, web services and container formats: Discord, Gmail, YouTube, Vimeo, Amazon Fire, Android, Apple, Chromecast, PlayStation, Roku, Xbox, Matroska H .265 MKV, Matroska H.264 MKV and Matroska VP9 MKV.

 

When you hover your mouse over the Apple or Android menu items, a tooltip appears listing the devices for which this profile is suitable. For example, in this case, the iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and iPod touch MP3/MP4 player.

 

In another drop-down menu, from the “Format” option, you can select container formats: MP4, MKV, and WebM. This step is not necessary because clicking on one of the device profiles automatically sets the container to use.

Container configuration is done in the Summary tab. Detailed settings can be checked and made in other tabs, but in practice, other options are rarely used for simple video conversion.

You can manually adjust the encoding settings and save the new preset for later use along with the default presets.

HandBrake can be controlled through the Windows Command Prompt (CMD) in addition to the Graphical User Interface (GUI). However, the converter installer does not install the required HandBrakeCLI.exe file. If you are an advanced user and want to work with the application through the console, download the archive with the EXE application from the program page.

Convert video file to another format with HandBrake

Often users need to convert a video file to another format. This may be required for a specific device or to save space on the video.

HandBrake instructions for converting between different video formats:

1. Add the file to the program.
2. Choose a ready-made preset or a suitable format.
3. By default, the processed video files are saved in the “Video” system folder of the PC user profile. Click on the “Select” button to change the save location.
4. Click on the “Start Encoding” button.

 

5. As a result of the conversion, the original video file will be converted to another format.

If you select a preset for a particular device, the program will automatically set up the optimal configuration for converting between these video file formats.

To process several video files, after adding the file to the program, click on the “Add to queue” button. Then click on the “Queue” button, and in the window that opens, you need to click “Start queue”.

How to compress video in HandBrake using a preset

In HandBrake, video compression occurs according to ready-made settings or user parameters are used. In the first case, you need to select the appropriate preset for the device from those available in the application. The second method involves the independent selection of settings by the user.

According to the purpose of transcoding, you may have the following options: converting the video to a smaller frame size, or compressing the original format without changing the file resolution.

For example, after selecting the default settings without changing the resolution of the original video, click on the “Start Encoding” button.

 

After processing, the size of the video file used in this example decreased from 22.2 MB to 10.5 MB.

Video compression in HandBrake with custom settings

Now we will configure the compression settings ourselves. You need to go through the settings to set the required values.

If necessary, change these program parameters:

• In the “Dimensions” tab, you can specify the required size for the output file, crop or scale.

 

• In the “Filters” tab, you can enable some video filters: deinterlacing, decoding, noise reduction, deblocking, grayscale, color space, and so on.

 

• The “Video” tab contains settings with which you can significantly change the file parameters. Here you can select a video encoder, change the frame rate, number of passes, select the quality, profile and encoding level.

 

• In the “Audio” tab, you can select the codec to use and the bitrate for the audio track.

 

• In the “Subtitles” and “Chapters” tabs, the appropriate settings are set if they need to be applied: importing or deleting subtitles, splitting into chapters.

After selecting the required options, start encoding the video. You can do a few experiments to find the most suitable configuration for video encoding.

Article Conclusions

Users often come across different types of video files that have different formats. In this situation, you may need to convert the video to another format. The free HandBrake program is designed to convert videos to MP4, MKV and WebM formats. With a video converter, you can encode video with settings for a specific device using ready-made presets, or set up a custom configuration.