Handbrake

The Open Source video transcoder

HandBrake is a open-source tool, built by volunteers, for converting video from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs.

Reasons you’ll love HandBrake:

• Convert video from nearly any format
• Free and Open Source
• Multi-Platform (Windows, Mac and Linux)

I love Handbrake and have used it for years. I use it in conjunction with Makemkv which is another useful tool. However, laziness etc makes me simply use presets and nothing more and to be honest you don’t really need to change anything.

I use preset HQ 480p30 Surround. Handbrake’s documentation which is amazing lists this as:

Fast 1080p30

Type MP4

Video H.264

Audio AAC stereo

Picture Quality Standard

Encoding Speed Fast

File Size Average