World’s best video converter finally exits beta after 13 years

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Handbrake
Handbrake is our favorite video converter.
Photo: Michael Steeber/Cult of Mac

Handbrake has been our go-to tool for all types of video conversion how-tos for years and now after 13 years in ‘beta’ the free software is officially ready for its official launch.

The team behind the popular software revealed today that version 1.0.0 of Handbrake is now available. It includes a host of new features as well as new online documentation in English that provides easy to read workflows for making videos.

Handbrake is also available on Windows and Linux. The tool rose to popularity thanks to its feature that makes ripping DVDs a breeze. Even though most Mac users have ditched DVDs, it’s still incredibly useful for converting video files to a format that can be watched on Apple TV and iOS.

You can download the new update for free directly from Handbrake’s website. The app is not available through third-parties or mirrored servers so make sure to download it straight from the source.

Here is a list of all the new features for Mac:

– Updated all tooltips
– Added undo/redo support to the graphical interface
– Improved drag and drop support
– Added Open Recent to the File menu
– Added Add Titles to Queue… to the File menu (batch queueing)
– Preview prompts to open in an external application when the internal player does not support the format
– Preview now displays volume and audio/subtitles language selection during playback
– Picture and Filters settings are now part of the main window
– Settings are preserved when selecting a new title (instead of reloading the last selected preset)
– Improved support for importing/exporting comma-separated (.csv) chapter markers
– Queue is now automatically paused when available disk space is low
– When Done action can now be changed directly from the Queue window
– When Done notification is now interactive (reveals the encoded file in Finder)
– Activity Log window is now searchable (press “?”+”f” to activate)
– XQuartz is no longer required for subtitle burn-in
– Updated Sparkle software update library
– Enabled DSA signature checking for improved security
– Usability improvements
– Miscellaneous bug fixes

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