Popular HandBrake video conversion app gets support for AV1 and VP9 encoding

Originally developed as a solution for saving movie DVDs to PCs, HandBrake has become a universal tool for converting all kinds of videos downloaded from smartphones, camcorders and all kinds of digital cameras. Evolving from the commonplace DVD, HandBrake is now also an indispensable tool for reprocessing Blu-ray rips, allowing you to get video files that retain as much of the original quality as possible without taking up too much space on your HDD/SSD.

Now in version 1.6, the HandBrake video conversion utility can convert video files for optimal viewing on iPhones, Apple TV or Android TV in a few clicks by simply selecting the compression profile for the device to be played. But the true power of the app is only exposed after accessing the advanced configuration options, as HandBrake allows you to choose between several powerful compression technologies: AV1, VP9 10-bit, NVENC 10-bit HEVC and VCN 10-bit HEVC. For example, if you have a PC or laptop with an NVIDIA graphics accelerator, you can select NVENC to use the CPU and GPU side together for a spectacular speed boost.

Coming to the AV1 codec, early attempts at software encoding relied on rather experimental code, lacking the multiprocessing support so important to achieving reasonable conversion speeds. We can only assume that the HandBrake implementation solves these shortcomings, providing superior video compression without major performance penalties.

In addition to dedicated presets for 4K AV1 and 4K HEVC compression, the new HandBrake release also adds support for Intel Deep Link Hyper Encode technology, developed to enable simultaneous access to multiple Intel processors with Quick Sync technology, facilitating further acceleration of video conversion.