| User review:
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HandBrake is an excellent free open-source video converter (transcoder) that continues to improve over time and gradually incorporates new features. I've been using it for quite a few years now to convert videos for playback on my mobile devices and would highly recommend the software to others. The graphical user interface (GUI) is fairly self-explantory and easy to use (although there is still room for improvement!), making it accessible even to novice users who haven't really got into video converting before.
However, the FDK-AAC encoder was removed from HandBrake due to GPL licensing issues (from version 0.10.5 onwards), and the current default AAC encoder (LibAV) for the Windows and Linux versions is lacking in quality compared to FDK as its only a basic AAC encoder (the Mac version uses CoreAudio (Apple's AAC encoder) which is even better than FDK, but cannot be used in the Windows version, AFAIK!), fortunately you can still compile HandBrake from source and re-enable the FDK-AAC encoder, see my guide on how this can be done for the Windows version: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/383208-How-to-get-HandBrake-with-FDK-AAC-for-Windows
Note: This is by no means an easy process and I would only recommend this to advanced users!
My hope for the future of HandBrake is that a new and better quality AAC encoder will be made accessilble to Windows and Linux users, or LibAV improves significantly! |
