The HandBrake developers have released version 0.9.6 of the open source, cross-platform video transcoder software. The new version brings many improvements to the video and audio libraries used for both decoding and encoding.

Aside from those library updates and bug fixes, HandBrake 0.9.6 adds support for Blu-ray audio decoding and video encoding to MPEG-2. Other changes on Windows include a redesigned preview window and the dropping of QuickTime support, while on Linux there is a new advanced audio options section with gain, audio track names, compression and sample rate. The option to set a target size for HandBrake output has been removed and, according to the developers "isn't coming back - Don't bother complaining on the forums".

On Mac OS X, DVD decryption with VLC 2.0 no longer works, as HandBrake can no longer rely on VLC for circumventing the CSS copy protection. The developers say that libdvdcss is the preferred method for decrypting DVDs and users should install a separate package to enable it.

A detailed change log can be found on the HandBrake site. The software is available for download on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux (Ubuntu and Fedora) and is licensed under the GPLv2.

See also:

HandBrake 0.9.5 adds new presets, some Blu-ray support, a report from The H



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