HandBrakeBatch review: Easy-does-it batch video conversion
When you mention HandBrake around media-savvy Mac users, DVD ripping is the first thing that comes to mind. And while HandBrake is indeed a great tool for ripping the DVDs you own, it’s also quite a good (and free) video-conversion tool, letting you take video that doesn’t play on a particular device (like, say, an iPhone or an Apple TV) and converting it to a format that does. One thing that HandBrake doesn’t handle very elegantly, however, is batch processing—converting a bunch of video files in one shot.
In fact, for a long time, HandBrake didn’t support batch processing at all. It’s recently gained this feature, but it’s still not as easy as it could be: To batch process a group of videos, you must click HandBrake’s Source button, navigate to a folder full of videos that you wish to convert, choose File > Add All Titles To Queue, select the conversion preset you want to use, and then click Start. If the desired videos happen to be spread across several folders or volumes, you must repeat this process for each folder or volume. While the procedure is hardly painful, it’s not as easy as simply dragging movies into a single window, choosing a preset, and then starting the conversion.
Fortunately, there’s a utility that does exactly that: Cesare Tagliaferri’s HandBrakeBatch, and it doesn’t even require that you install HandBrake—HandBrakeBatch includes the open-source components of HandBrake necessary to perform conversions. (Though if HandBrake is installed on your Mac, and you’ve added any custom conversion presets, HandBrakeBatch will be able to use those presets.) HandBrakeBatch is free to download, but the developer asks that if you find it useful, you donate to a charity.
Drag, drop, choose, and click. Your videos are converted.
Launch HandBrakeBatch, and a single window opens—into this window you drag any and all videos you want to convert. Click the HandBrake Preset pop-up menu, and you’ll find all of HandBrake’s default conversion presets as well as any custom presets you’ve added to HandBrake—choose the desired preset. Finally, choose the folder where you want converted files saved. (HandBrakeBatch will remember this folder for future conversions.) Click Start, and HandBrakeBatch uses the engine that powers HandBrake to perform the conversion(s).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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