HandBrake, the popular free open-source video transcoder for Linux, Windows, and macOS, released new 1.11.0 version today!
Thanks to FFmpeg 8.0, the new version added encoding support for ProRes, a lossy compression format developed by Apple.
Archives For media converter
HandBrake video transcoder announced new 1.9.0 release few days ago. Here’s new features and native .deb package for Ubuntu users.
The new HandBrake 1.9.0 added Intel QSV VVC hardware video decoding support, and an option to enable AV1 screen content coding(SCC) on Intel Lunar Lake QSV AV1 encoder.
It also added support for lossless VP9 encoding, meaning it can convert videos to VP9 codec while keeping 100% original quality.
Continue Reading…
Handbrake video transcode 1.2.1 was released a few days ago with numerous bug-fixes and improvements.
Handbrake 1.2.1 release highlights:
- Fixed potential crashes due to use of uninitialized variables
- Improved minimum duration to only apply to DVD and BD sources
- Fixed incorrect video rotation where rotation flagged as none
- Fixed yadif deinterlace filter not properly deinterlacing all frames
- Fixed missing frame at the end of encodes from m2ts sources
- Fixed detection of MPEG-1 video in program streams
- Fixed decoding of MPEG-1 video in DVD sources
- Fixed Apple VideoToolbox encoding issues related to pyramidal B-frames
- Fixed lapsharp filter corrupting frame edges
- Improved NLMeans performance
- Improved AMD VCE encoding to enable placing key frames at chapter markers
- Improved calculation of final frame duration
- Improved support for BT.2020 color space
- Fixed channel mapping for AAC 5.1 encoding
- Fixed display of special characters in preset names
- Fixed exporting presets to sanitize system reserved characters
- Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements
How to Install Handbrake in Ubuntu:
The official HandBrake PPA offers the latest packages for Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 18.10, and Linux Mint 19.x.
1. Open terminal either via Ctrl+Alt+T keyboard shortcut or by searching for ‘terminal’ from application menu. When it opens, run command:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stebbins/handbrake-releases
Type user password (no asterisks feedback) when it asks for sudo command and hit Enter to add PPA.
2. Then install the video transcoder via command:
sudo apt install handbrake-gtk handbrake-cli
Linux Mint needs to run command sudo apt update first to refresh system package cache.
Uninstall:
To remove the software, open terminal and run command:
sudo apt remove --autoremove handbrake-gtk handbrke-cli
To remove the PPA, launch Software & Updates and navigate to Other Software tab.
The open source video transcoder HandBrake 1.1.2 was released a day ago with various bug-fixes.
Changes in HandBrake 1.1.2 include:
- Fixed Blu-ray title name where reading from raw device
- Improved handling of broken units in Blu-ray source (skip and continue reading)
- Fixed rare crash related to preview images, anamorphic, and default preset values
- Fixed jitter produced by 59.94 fps to 29.97 fps frame rate conversion
- Fixed duration of silence buffers (may improve audio/video sync for some sources)
- Updated libraries: libdvdread 6.0.0, libdvdnav 6.0.0 (DVD decoding)
- Fixed potential crash where $HOME directory is missing
- Fixed legacy preferences causing preset window being shown at every launch
- Fixed preset name and menu display on Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr
- Fixed default destination file name for Blu-ray source to not include MPLS number
- Fixed queue reloading in Flatpak sandbox
- Fixed toolbar icons alignment and use correct art for lower pixel density
- And some fixes for Mac OS and Windows.
How to Install HandBrake in Ubuntu:
The software has an official PPA repository for current Ubuntu releases. As usual, HandBrake 1.1.2 will be available via PPA a few days later.
At that time, open terminal either via Ctrl+Alt+T or from software launcher, and run following commands one by one to install the latest handbrake:
1. Run command to add the PPA repository:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stebbins/handbrake-releases
Type your password (no asterisks feedback) when it prompts and hit Enter.
2. Refresh system repositories cache via command:
sudo apt update
3. Remove Ubuntu build of handbrake if installed:
sudo apt remove --autoremove handbrake
4. Finally install the video transcoder from the PPA:
sudo apt install handbrake-gtk handbrake-cli
Uninstall:
To remove the PPA repository, open Software & Updates and navigate to Other Software tab.
To remove HandBrake, run command in terminal:
sudo apt remove --autoremove handbrake-gtk handbrake-cli
In addition, the latest HandBrake also available as Flatpak (containerised software package) for 64-bit Ubuntu.
Free and open-source multimedia converter Curlew 0.2.5 was released today with great new features and enhancements.
Curlew is a GTK3 software written in Python and uses ffmpeg/avconv for media encoding. The latest Curlew 0.2.5 features:
- Add option to include all audio tracks of file.
- Add support for merging files.
- Add Fade In/Out filter feature.
- Add paste “from the Clipboard” feature.
- Use Home directory as default converting destination.
- Hide unused page/widget.
- Add xplayer to players list.
- Colored buttons (Convert/Close).
- Removed CSD option.
- Deleted stdeb config files and use native debian packaging system.
- Fix disabled convert button issue.
- Bug fixes, code enhancements, and translation updates.
How to install Curlew 0.2.5 in Ubuntu:
The software offers pre-compiled .deb package available for download at the link below:
To install the .deb package in Ubuntu 16.04 and Ubuntu 18.04, either use Gdebi package manager or run command in terminal:
sudo dpkg -i ~/Downloads/curlew_0.2.5-1_all.deb; sudo apt-get -f install
Uninstall:
To remove the software, simply run command in terminal:
sudo apt-get remove --autoremove curlew
The open source Selene media converter got a new release a few days ago with enhancements, translation updates, and updated installers.
Selene is an audio/video converter for Linux that supports almost every file format that you are likely to come across and can encode them to popular output formats like MKV, MP4, etc. It aims to provide a simple GUI for converting files to popular formats along with powerful command-line options for automated/unattended encoding.
Selene 17.7 features:
- Added support for OPUS in WEBM, MKV and OGG containers
- Added audio tag support for Fraunhoffer AAC encoding
- Use VLC for playing media instead of internal player
- MediaPlayer: Center screen and show file name in header bar
- Updated installers and translations.
How to Install Selene 17.7 in Ubuntu:
The project offers the .deb and .run installers in its release page.
To upgrade the software easily via system Software Updater utility, you can install Selene from the developer’s PPA repository:
1. Open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to add the PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:teejee2008/ppa
Type in your password (no visual feedback while typing due to security reason) when prompts and hit Enter. Supports for Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 17.04, Ubuntu 17.10
2. To install the media encoder for first time, run commands to check updates and install it:
sudo apt update sudo apt install selene
To upgrade it from an existing release, simply launch Software Updater and install the updates.
Uninstall:
To remove selene media converter, run command in terminal:
sudo apt remove --autoremove selene
And remove the PPA repository via Software & Udpates utility under Other Software tab.
Curlew is a free multimedia converter for Ubuntu Linux that features small package size, few library dependencies, 100+ output formats, easy to use UI, and more.
Curlew is written in Python and GTK+ 3, and uses FFMPEG (or Libav-tools) to transcode media files. The main features are:
- Easy to use user interface (New GTK3 Header bar).
- Hide the advanced options with the ability to show them.
- More than 100 output formats.
- Allow to edit formats.
- Shutdown or suspend PC afer a conversion process.
- Show file informations, file details using mediainfo.
- Allow to skip or remove file during conversion process.
- Preview file before conversion in its context menu.
- Show video thumbnail.
- Convert a specified portion of file.
- Combine subtitle with video.
- Allow to crop and pad video.
- Show error details if exist.
- And more …
Curlew 100+ output formats
Curlew Advanced Settings
Curlew show file info
How to Install Curlew transcoder in Ubuntu:
Pre-compiled Ubuntu .deb is available in the link below:
So far, the latest is “curlew_0.2.2-1_all.deb”, just download and install it via either Ubuntu Software or terminal command (Ctrl+Alt+T):
sudo dpkg -i ~/Downloads/curlew_*.deb; sudo apt -f install
Works for Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 15.10, and their derivatives. Once installed, launch Curlew from Unity Dash, or your desktop app launcher.
The open source video transcoder Handbrake 0.10.1 was released recently with various fixes. The developers are working on the next major release Handbrake 1.0.
In an attempt to move away from our yearly release cycle, we have decided to start publishing interim fix releases. 0.10.1 marks the first of these releases. It’s focus is to fix some common bugs rather than introduce the new features we are working on in the background for 1.0.
Release highlights in Handbrake 0.10.1:
- Various bug fixes for all platforms and the core engine.
- Updated x265 to 1.5 which brings numerous bug fixes and some performance improvements.
Install or Upgrade to Handbrake 0.10.1 in Ubuntu:
The developer has made the binaries into PPA, available for Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 14.10, and/or Linux Mint 17/17.1.
To add the PPA, open terminal from the Dash or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stebbins/handbrake-releases
After that, upgrade Handbrake through Software Updater. Or install it by running below commands in terminal:
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install handbrake-gtk
Selene, a free and open-source batch media converter, has recently reached ver 2.5 with VP9 and H265/HEVC encoding support.
For the new encoding supports, there are some points noted in the official release note:
For VP9 encoding support using ffmpeg or avconv:
- VP9 encoder is very slow compared to VP8. Use the ‘speed’ slider to adjust the encoding speed. Lower values will give better quality video at expense of encoding speed. Higher values will speed-up encoding at the expense of quality. You need to find a balance that you are comfortable with.
- The ‘constant quality’ rate control method seems to be broken in the VP8/VP9 encoder. Both ffmpeg and vpxenc tools ignore the –crf/–cq-level parameter and produce bad quality video. So currently only ‘variable bitrate’ mode is available in the application.
- Output format is WebM (*.webm). Other containers currently do not support VP8/VP9 video formats.
- Ensure that the version of ffmpeg/avconv on your system was compiled with VP8/VP9 support. As of now, the version available in the Ubuntu repositories for 14.04 and above, have support for VP8/VP9 encoding. You can verify this by running the command: ‘avconv -codecs | grep libvpx’
Selene with VP9 Encoding support
For H.265/HEVC encoding support:
- x265 encoder is very slow compared to x264. Change the ‘preset’ option to ‘fast’ or ‘fastest’ to speed-up the encoding at the expense of compression (output file size).
- Only MP4 container is supported for output. MKV output is not yet available since both ‘mkvmerge’ and ‘ffmpeg’ are yet to add support for muxing h265 streams.
Selene with H265 encoding support
How to Install / Upgrade Selene in Ubuntu:
For Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, and Linux Mint 17/17.1 users, the latest packages for this converter are available in the developer’s PPA.
Open terminal from the Dash or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run below commands one by one to add the PPA and install the software:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:teejee2008/ppa sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install selene
Or you can directly grab the .deb installer from the ppa packages page.
via: TeeJee Tech
FF Multi Converter, simple app to convert audio, video, image and document files between all popular formats. It uses ffmpeg for audio/video files, unoconv for document files and PythonMagick library for image file conversions.
FF Multi Converter 1.6.0 was released recently, it has been finally ported to python3 and PythonMagick library replaced by ImageMagick. Users can now pass extra command line parameters for image conversions to the program.
New translations: Italian, Spanish, Chinese (Taiwan) and Malay.
Install ffmulticonverter:
The DEB packages for Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 12.04, Linux Mint will be available soon in this page or the PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ffmulticonverter/stable sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install ffmulticonverter
Once installed, open it from Unity Dash or Menu.
