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Add to SafariWhen comparing HandBrake vs Wundershare Video Converter Ultimate, the Slant community recommends HandBrake for most people. In the question“What are the best DVD ripping tools for Mac OS X?” HandBrake is ranked 2nd while Wundershare Video Converter Ultimate is ranked 3rd. The most important reason people chose HandBrake is:
There are presets for everything, so you don't have to delve deep in to advanced features if you don't want or need to. And in most cases you won't have to because the presets are great.
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Great, easy to use presets
There are presets for everything, so you don't have to delve deep in to advanced features if you don't want or need to. And in most cases you won't have to because the presets are great.
Pro Advanced features
Although HandBrake is pretty straightforward to use, you can adjust pretty much any aspect of your conversion if necessary. For example, when transcoding video you have the option of adjusting between constant and variable framerate, adjusting average bitrate and constant quality, having 2-pass encoding or not, as well as tinkering with encoder specific options, and many, many, many more options.
Pro Fast
Since version 0.9.9. HandBrake has been very fast.
Pro Wide range of formats and multiple media types supported
HandBrake can handle DVDs, Blu-Rays, .mp4, .mkv, H.264(x264), MPEG-4, MPEG-2, AAC, MP3, FLAC, AC3, Vorbis, AC-3, DTS and DTS-HD among others.
Pro Often works when dumping archiving disc to hard drive methods do not
Pro Free and open source
HandBrake is licensed under GPL.
Pro Cross-platform
HandBrake works on Windows, Linux and OS X.
Pro Lightweight
It is designed to convert, no added bloat.
Pro Good metadata support
HandBrake can pull, use and edit metadata.
Pro Command Line Interface option
There's HandBrakeCLI if you wish to use HandBrake frome a terminal.
Pro Encoding options are comprehensive but easy to use up front
The GUI makes it easy to encode by providing profiles and a simple GUI, but offers extensive encoding options for people willing to learn and spend time experimenting.
Pro High quality conversions for minimum - no effort
Default profile options generally have most fields filled with "smart fit" option by default. This is essentially mirroring the source media as closely as possible, so you get a high-quality conversion with a mild (probably not noticeable) loss in quality.
Custom profiles can be made. There seems to be no lossless or pass-thru options for generic video or hd video profiles though.
Pro Easy high quality conversions
By default, conversions use "smart fit" for almost all options. This amounts to nearly lossless conversions, or more accurately, high-quality for minimum effort lossy copies. By default, audio is compressed to lossy AAC format. Users can create custom profiles if so desired.
Pro Great profile categories
Video Converter Ultimate has great categories of profiles, some are generic video formats, generic audio formats, device specific formats including some virtual reality headsets which I have not seen before in other software, formats for editing in popular video editors, generic hd video formats, and for sharing over the web or for popular video sharing websites.
Pro Web Browser addons/extensions to make downloading videos from the web easy
Browsers supported on the Mac are Firefox, Google Chrome & Safari.
Pro Single purchase/ lifetime license options
Buy it once and you're done.
They do have an annual license at $39.95 / Year and a Family lifetime license (2-5 computers) for $118.00. The $59.95 lifetime single license is a good deal if you think you'll use the software extensively beyond two-three years.
Pro Can copy and burn DVD media
It can copy to formats including ISO, TS/DVD Folder and .dvdmedia.
Cons
Con Supports only two containers
You can output only .mp4 and .mkv.
Con There is no way to preserve menus and special features
Menus and special features will typically not be included in the output from a handbrake encode. Third party software would need to be used.
Con no linux support for hw acceleration
I know that it is not as high quality, but transcoding terabytes of 1080p videos to h265 without hw support isn't realistic and wont be for a long time
Con Not for 1:1 archiving or true backup use
Most uses of Handbrake are lossy, lossless is possible but it usually entails crazy huge file sizes.
Con No pass thru options when converting. No lossless options for audio for video conversions
There is no "pass thru" option when doing conversions, also there is no lossless option for audio when working in the video or HD video profile categories. Oddly enough there are lossless conversion options if you use the audio category, but this will output a separate file from the video.
Depending on the video container you use and it's capabilities, users can do separate conversions and then mux the lossless audio and video output files later with other 3rd party applications if lossless quality is that important.
In that case, this application would not be as convenient compared to other software, while it can do 1:1 copies, other software are more dedicated to this purpose and have more options in this regard.
Con License for Mac and Windows require separate purchases
If you buy one, you can purchase a license for the other OS at a discount, but still, it'd be nice to purchase one license for both.
Con Have experienced issues with buggy seeking of timeline on HD MKV output files
Will update with more info as time goes on, if other ripped media has this problem or if an update fixes this.
