The widely utilized and robust video conversion tool HandBrake has launched a significant update in its latest version.
HandBrake 1.8.0 has transitioned to using GTK 4 for its user interface, moving away from GTK 3.
This update, which has been in development for a year or two, might not drastically alter the application’s appearance or cause any alarm as it does not incorporate libadwaita. However, the transition to GTK 4 introduces several improvements both in the front and back end of HandBrake.
Notably, the audio and subtitle track listing widgets have become interactive in the GTK 4 update, aligning these features with the functionality found in the Windows and macOS versions.
The old GStreamer-based preview window has been replaced by one using GtkMediaStream to reduce the number of dependencies needed by the app and, potentially, lead to more efficient video playback – which is great to hear.
HandBrake 1.8 still makes use of a traditional title bar and menu bar for its main window on Linux, but many secondary windows do adopt GTK Headerbars to provide better consistency with the design language of most other modern GTK apps.
Another upside to the GTK4 port is that the underlying code changes make working on the Linux UI easier than before, a possible boon for new contributors. All being well we’ll see more refinements to the Linux UI in the coming months and years.
HandBrake 1.8.0 has some there Linux-specific buffs too:
- Support for recursive file scan
- Support for drag and drop multi-file scanning (including subtitle files)
- New
--clear-queueand--auto-start-queueflags - Updated icons within the app/symbolic
HandBrake 1.8.0 on macOS offers Metal-accelerated Comb Detection and Framerate Shaper filters, supports dragging and dropping of subtitle files onto the main window, an improved toolbar layout, and can pause encodes when the device switches to battery power.
Windows users now have access to an ‘Invert Queue’ feature within the ‘Add to Queue’ dialog, and the new drag and drop functionality includes recursive folder scanning. The software also requires the .NET desktop runtime version 8.0.x.
Several updates have been introduced in HandBrake 1.8.0 applicable to all operating systems, though some may depend on hardware:
- Muxing VP9 and FLAC in an MP4 container
- Importing legacy plist based presets is no longer supported
- The iso639 language codes list has been updated
- There is now support for FFV1 encoding, including a preset
- A TrueHD encoder for audio has been introduced
- Sample rates such as 88.2/96/176.4/192 kHz are available for TrueHD and FLAC encoders
- Multi-pass CQ is now supported with VP9
- There is new support for VP9 tunes
- Dolby Vision dynamic metadata pass through is available for SVT-AV1
- There are decomb speed improvements
- Improved Framerate Shaper metrics for high depth frames are now available
Many bug fixes, including issues with subtitles, have also been addressed. For more detailed information, refer to the official v1.8.0 changelog on GitHub.
Install HandBrake 1.8.0 on Ubuntu
To install HandBrake from Flathub, you may alternatively choose to download a Flatpak installer direct from the HandBrake official website, or opt for an unofficial HandBrake PPA by PandaJim, which is pre-packaged for Ubuntu versions 22.04 to 24.04 LTS.
Searching for HandBrake via the App Center on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS generally brings up an outdated unofficial snap, not updated for over two years. A DEB filter can be applied to install HandBrake from the Ubuntu repository, although it is an older release, version 1.7.3.
As a tip, I frequently use HandBrake to compress my Blu-Ray rips obtained via MakeMKV.