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The custom settings we laid out will get you off to a good start, but to truly take advantage of Handbrake, you'll want to spend some time fine tuning the app based on your specific needs. Finding the ideal balance of quality to performance is going to take some trial and error, and you could spend hours experimenting and setting up different profiles for all your (and your family's) mobile gadgets. So the last thing you want to do following a catastrophic system crash or hardware upgrade is go through the process all over again.
Handbrake saves your custom settings to the hard drive, but it's not particularly easy to find, nor can you back them up through the GUI. Before you begin, you'll need to configure Windows to show hidden files and folders. To do this, open up your hard drive, press the Alt key, and navigate to Tools>Folder Options. Click on the View tab and check the Show hidden files, folders, or drives radio button. Press Apply.
You'll find your custom settings nestled away in C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Handbrake. See the user_presets.xml file? That contains all of your custom profiles you created. Copy this to a USB stick or other place for safe keeping, and transfer it back to the directory on a new build or install.
Far be it for us to chastise anyone for sitting in front of a computer all day, but it's a little different when you're talking about an all-night gaming session versus waiting for Handbrake to finish encoding a video so you can fire up another one. Nobody in their right mind is going to do that, nor does Handbrake expect you to.
Instead, add several jobs to Handbrake's Encode Queue and let the program do its thing while you sleep the night away or while you're off toiling for the man. After you've configured a video file for Handbrake to encode, press the Add to Queue button instead of Start. Once you do that, click the Source button and pluck another video, press Add to Queue again, and rinse and repeat for as many videos as you need to encode. To view your queue, just click the Show Queue button, where you can also prioritize rips by moving them up or down. When you're ready to start encoding, hit the Encode button in the Queue window.
If you own multiple DVD drives (and who doesn't?), you can have Handbrake queue up rips from each one, but it gets a little tricky. For the first DVD, choose the appropriate DVD drive as you normally would, choose a Preset, and click Add to Queue. Logic would dictate that you simply repeat this step for each of your other optical drives, but often times this will trip up Handbrake and it will end up scanning the second (and subsequent) drive indefinitely.
To prevent this from happening, for each additional DVD drive/disc, choose DVD/VIDEO_TS Folder from the Source menu and navigate to your DVD's VIDEO_TS folder. Before adding it to the queue, be sure to edit the file name in the Destination field because using this method doesn't retain the DVD title.
What's that you say, it's not possible to tack on soft subtitles with Handbrake? While that was true for the longest time, version 0.9.4 addresses this glaring oversight and Handbrake now lets you include soft subs rather than permanently hardcode them onto the video track. Not only that, but you're free to add multiple subtitles too.
That's all well and good, but what if you have a collection of downloaded videos without subtitles? As luck would have it, there are several websites dedicated to serving up nothing but subs, some of which include:
Adding a soft subtitle with Handbrake is pretty easy, but follow closely. To start with, click on the Subtitles tab in the main window. Mash the Import SRT button and find the .srt file you downloaded (or that you already have) and click Open. You should now see the .srt file in the Track pull-down menu, but just because you imported it into Handbrake doesn't mean it was added to your video. Highlight the .srt file from the pull-down menu and punch the Add button.
To add multiple subtitle tracks to a single video, repeat the above instructions, and make sure you add each one by pressing the button, not just importing. If you want one of the tracks to come up as the default, check the Default box before adding it to your video.
Comments are closed on this article
bolod
December 27, 2011 at 3:02am
Substantially, the article is really the best on this laudable topic. I concur with your conclusions and will eagerly look forward to your future updates.Just saying thank you will not just be enough, for the wonderful lucidity in your writing.
bolod
December 26, 2011 at 5:36am
Really i am impressed from this post. The person who created this post is a genius and knows how to keep the readers connected.Thanks for sharing this with us. I found it informative and interesting. Looking forward for more updates.
xekon
October 16, 2011 at 6:46pm
No Fast P-Skip: Improves encoding speed by blocking on-solid colors, but also reduces quality.
No DCT Decimate: Tells x264 to "zero out" blocks when they won't be noticed by the viewer. Can be useful in reducing file sizes, but can also introduce unintended artifacts.
Fast P-Skip improves encoding speed by blocking on solid colors, enabling "No Fast P-skip" can sometimes help preserve dither and solve blocking issues, but slows down encoding, so that explanation was kinda backwards.
It is the same for "No DCT Decimate" it is backwards, "DCT Decimate" zeros out blocks, and enabling "No DCT Decimate" disables it from zeroing out blocks.
jfcarbel
October 01, 2011 at 2:26pm
I have to say been a subscriber to mag since it was boot mag and this is best article you have had. But it really needs updating now. Since it was written much has changed with Handbrake, they dropped the xvid codec support and now only support H.264, support Bluray, and support of new built in profiles.
And we now have WD Live, Android Phones, iPads and MKV is becoming a more standard container for home media while MP4 remains the dominent choice in portables.
I think the importance of an updated article like this is huge with portable pads taking off and now Android in the mix. Please update it!
Also there are some good commercial one click choices out there for the tech challenged as well but maybe thats a separate article.
I believe MakeMKV has had some big updates and BD-Rebuilder while in beta is pretty solid now and recently the author added hidden opts to provide for ability to remove certain bluray content while still keeping the menus. tsmuxer has fixed bugs and so has eac3to.
I know this article was titled Handbrake, but it really went alot farther then I would expect which was great. Please do the same for next article but I might call it the ripping guide or something. I know you did a ripping guide article as well but that was in 2009.
Joyceca
July 07, 2011 at 7:51pm
Nice Post! Considerate and in great details- really appriciated.
"Rip Blu-ray to MKV (and Retain Chapters and Subtitles)" I'm just to add a comment for this solution- a new released app called ByteCopy now rips Blu-ray to MKV and retain chapters and subtitles like MakeMKV does, and meanwhile downmix TrueHD/DTS-HD audio to AC3 if you like. I think it very useful and recommend it as a top Blu-ray to MKV ripper.
docb77
August 16, 2010 at 12:13pm
Has anyone found a freeware alternative to DVD2One for merging different video files. I downloaded the trial version and found that I couldn't join a 2 disc movie because of a 2 hour limit built into the trial version. I've only got a few 2 disc movies to do this to, so I'm not willing to spend the $60 for the full version.
LostOnTheLine
July 09, 2010 at 8:26pm
I don't know if this is a new change or not, but I just
installed DVDFab HD Decrypter on my Win7 64 OS & it said it was free to use
HD Decrypter but all the others (DVD to DVD, Blu-Ray to Blu-Ray, etc) were available
for "Trial User" License for 30 days. When I open up the
"Free" HD Decrypter & select Full Disk or Main Movie under DVD to
DVD it tells me that I'm now starting my 30 trial of DVD to DVD.Now, sorry for my ignorance if my question if it's one of
those "DUH!" things but I'm new to the world of 64; Why doesn't DVD
43 work in 32bit mode? More than half of my software is 32bit, I'm gonna copy
the decrypted Folder to my HDD & run from that anyways. If I have to I can
always Copy the folder on my 32bit laptop, transfer it over & encode it in
Win7, but if I can avoid the extra step & transfer. Now that I think about it, HandBrake runs in 32bit mode, so what's the
problem with DVD43? Does the, essentially compatibility mode, prevent it from accessing
the proper resource?
Villemus
February 15, 2010 at 7:57pm
Needs more information on how to get the subtitles to work. And I don't just mean this guide, I mean the entire internets. I've scoured around Google and Bing to try to find some help but I still can's get the "soft" subtitles to work despite countless attempts.
bigben71784
January 23, 2010 at 10:44am
I have used these settings for the Xbox 360 and am trying to backup all my dvd's to stream them. I rip the files using DVD fab and then use handbrake to convert the Video_TS folder to a .mpeg4 however the resulting mpeg4 file is not playable in windows media center. I have tried this 3 different times on 2 different DVD's and it has failed to play every time. Any suggestions?
Aurien
January 21, 2010 at 4:33pm
Tried using handbrake, but the devs have pretty much stated they have absolutely no care to even try and get support for enconding to WMV. So if you want 5.1 audio on your XBox, you'll need to look somewhere else for your encoding software. TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress does a fantastic job of this and supports a wide array of formats. Been using it to encode my entire DVD collection. About 130 DVD's down and a lot more to go.
samduhman
January 21, 2010 at 3:02pm
Thanks for the handbrake update. It could have used a how to rip the dvd (movie/TV series) from anydvd section. I get the encoding part with Handbrake but not the part where you rip the dvd to hard disk. Do I just rip the entire disk to HD or do I select certain files, format?....I do have clone dvd2.
Also, I've been searching online for weeks and there seems to be no clear guidelines for ripping TV series DVDS. We need a how to rip TV series with menus and without menus and what to use to play them back? It took me a while to realize if I rip the entire DVD to VOB or ISO I could play it back with menus with VLC but it doesn't work with PS3 media server (not with menus when viewing). Its this kind of stuff that is driving me crazy and makes me just want to buy this instead.....
Also what is the best app to play them back on? There seems to be many options but which works best for each device. In my case I can hook my Laptop with Windows 7 to my TV and stream from my Windows Home server or use my PS3 or 360. Guess my issue is I have to many options which makes it even more complicated. ;)
Sony 400 blue ray disc player/changer http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10151&catalogId=10551&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665945153
Around $500 at Amazon
the_river
January 21, 2010 at 8:11am
Just got done two days ago encoding the last of my ripped DVDs. I think it was about 60 or so movies in all. It's great to have them on the PC, all compressed and easily archivable. May I recommend using a DVD drive you don't care about? Basically, if you got a Bluray drive, you wouldn't want to run up the mileage on it because it's more expensive than a $40 Light-On DVD+RW.
My friend was encoding straight from the DVD and his laptop DVD drive went up (I warned him). Fortunately Asus is replacing the drive and he borrowed a USB drive to get the job done, but still...ripping it to the drive then queing it up is the best way. It spins the DVD drive less. I even discovered that toward the end, my Plextor IDE drive I had was giving me some trouble during a rip and would freeze the OS (Windows 7 of all things!). I was forced to rip the rest with the SATA LG Bluray drive I had (faster). This reminded me of how I hate popping a disc in to a PC and no matter what, it seems to halt everything until it spins up. My new WD Black hard drive would go solid, and lock the OS up forcing a reboot.
Just some words from the wise who just did it...been there, done that.
GoldenMonkey
January 20, 2010 at 8:57pm
I love articles that explain everything thoroughly and in "English". Great article and continue the good work!
Trendecide
January 20, 2010 at 7:26pm
This completely makes up for the POS article on routers... this article is EXCELLENT! Bookmarked for reference.
Fission_Chipz
January 20, 2010 at 7:19pm
This was great i have been useing handbrake for some time now but had
no idea how to use some of these features. This should really come in
handy.As a side note does anyone know how to rip out individual
episodes form TV series dvds. With some shows each episode is a
different .vob file in the vide_ts folder and it is a simple matter of
cutting and pasting, but other shows have all the episodes on the disc
jamed together in two or three files. Is there a simple way to split
apart these episodes without manually entering in time segments to
create 'clips'?
frizb99
January 02, 2011 at 4:55am
I have a few episode discs formatted this way and was able to create files for each episode by selecting the chapters that contain that episode. For example, lets say disc 1 has 4 episodes on it, but only 1 VOB thats just under 4 hours long. If you play it in PowerDVD (or others) first, you should notice that episode 1 starts at chapter 1, episode 2 on ch 9, etc. Make a note where each episode starts and then narrow down the chapter range in HandBrake so it creates 4 files like this:
Episode 1: VTS_1 Chapters 1-8
Episode 2: VTS_1 Chapters 9-16
Episode 3: VTS_1 Chapters 17-24
Episode 4: VTS_1 Chapters 25-32Of course, this is just an example and your details may vary.
aviaggio
January 20, 2010 at 5:10pm
Yeah, this is good stuff. I was totally bummed they removed all the presets from 0.9.4. Now I don't have to fart around and try to figure this stuff out myself (or spend hours googling for the info).
