Handbrake 1.6.0 with AV1 support on the Fedora desktop
Handbrake running on Fedora Workstation (don’t judge me)

A big update to HandBrake, the cross-platform and open-source video transcoder, is available to download.

HandBrake 1.7.0 introduces a number of new features that users on Windows and macOS will benefit from, plus a bevvy of Linux-specific buffs.

Buffs. I use that word a lot of late.

New features and changes in Handbrake 1.7 that everyone gets to enjoy (hardware dependant) include:

  • AMD VCN AV1 encoder
  • NVIDIA NVENC AV1 encoder
  • Support for SVT-AV1 multi-pass ABR mode
  • Support for preserving ambient viewing enviroment metadata
  • QSV Rotate and Format filters
  • NVENC no longer uses multi-pass by default (option remains)
  • 2-pass encode option renamed to multi-pass
  • Bug fixes and performance improvements

Those using Handbrake on ARM and Apple Silicon will benefit from greatly improved performance, with the the latest FFmpeg offering faster HEVC decoding, and SVT-AV1 assembly optimisations delivering a 4x increase in performance.

If you regularly convert videos on Linux using this app (as I was recently; I went through a spate of ripping some BluRays using MakeMKV, then squashing the giant MKVs down into more reasonable file sizes) this update also includes:

  • Improved QSV support
  • Drag and drop support for video scanning
  • Support for native file choosers via xdg-desktop-portal
  • Queue > Add All menu option
  • XML chapter import and export
  • Bit depth and HDR information in video summary
  • Option to pause encoding when power saver activated
  • Automatic file naming options
  • Queue, Activity, & Presets windows behaviour tweaks

Download HandBrake 1.7

HandBrake 1.7 is free, open source software available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Downloads are available from the HandBrake website or its GitHub page (just be sure you download the correct package for your OS/distro/package manager).

Linux users can install the HandBrake Flathub package or fetch it from the Snap Store. If you don’t need the latest version, older versions of HandBrake (which remain fully functional) are available in the Ubuntu repos, a mere sudo apt install handbrake away.