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Add to SafariWhen comparing HandBrake vs XMedia Recode, the Slant community recommends HandBrake for most people. In the question“What are the best combined audio & video transcoders?” HandBrake is ranked 2nd while XMedia Recode is ranked 7th. 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 Filters
Crop, resolution, denoise, blur, sharpness, rotate, smart blur, etc.
loudness normalization, volume correction, etc.
Pro Bitrate control modes
VBR, 2-pass VBR, CQP, ICQ/LA-ICQ, etc.
Pro Hardware acceleration
Intel Quick Sync, NVENC/cuda, AMD.
Pro Many codec types
H264, HEVC, VP9, AV1, etc.
AAC, HE-AAC, HE-AAC V2, opus, vorbis, flac, ape, etc.
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.
