Handbrake now adds AV1 Encoding support for NVIDIA's "Ada" GeForce RTX 40 & AMD's "RDNA 3" Radeon RX 7000 GPUs.

Handbrake Will Now Utilize Flagship Encoding Performance, Through Support For Current-Gen GPUs

Handbrake is an open-source interface designed to "convert video from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs" In simple words, Handbrake's main purpose is to take a video source and convert it into a format that is more suitable for playback on various devices or platforms. It can be used for other purposes as well, such as editing a source video file and extracting audio and video content out of it. The dedicated GPU's video encoding abilities are leveraged by the software, which is why the use of Handbrake has been a vital part of professional content creators.

Developers behind Handbrake were a bit late when it came to supporting current-gen mainstream GPUs, since in the previous 1.60 update, the tool debuted with AV1 encoding for Intel's QuickSync.

The tool now has the option to utilize AMD's VCN AV1 encoder exclusive to RDNA 3 "Radeon RX 7000" GPUs, as well as NVIDIA's NVENC AV1 encoder featured on GeForce RTX 40 "Ada" GPUs.

Before proceeding to utilize Handbrake's new capabilities, make sure to install the latest drivers of your respective GPUs to ensure a streamlined encoding process.

General

Added Apple VideoToolbox hardware presetsUpdated Creator presetsDisabled interlacing detection and removal; assume creators are working with progressive sources by defaultUpdated Social presetsTarget higher quality and frame rate over shorter durations, without interlacing detection and removalBetter suited for modern social sharing of short live action clips and screen/game capturesRemoved Email presets in favor of revised Social presetsPlease stop sending videos via email or use the new Social presetsMiscellaneous bug fixes and improvements

Video

Added AMD VCN AV1 encoderAdded NVIDIA NVENC AV1 encoderAdded support for SVT-AV1 multi-pass ABR modeAdded support for preserving ambient viewing enviroment metadataAdded QSV Rotate and Format filtersImproved performance on arm64 / aarch64 / Apple Silicon architecturesLatest FFmpeg provides faster HEVC decoding, 30% faster bwdif filterNew SVT-AV1 assembly optimizations provide up to 4x increase in performanceImproved video conversion speed by removing unneeded frame copies for better memory efficiencyImproved Dolby Vision dynamic range metadata pass throughSupported encoders: x265 10-bitSupported profiles and cross-compatibility IDs: 8.4, 8.1, 7.6 (base layer only, converted to 8.1), 5.0Improved HDR10+ dynamic range metadata pass throughSupported encoders: x265 10-bit, SVT-AV1Improved QSV support on Linux (#4958)Updated NVENC to not use multi-pass by default; user configurable advanced optionRenamed 2-pass encode option to multi-pass (#5019)Fixed Intel QSV encoder outputting green video in some cases (#4842, #4876)Fixed pixel format conversion slightly altering colors when using a 10-bit hardware encoder (#5011)Fixed scan failures by using swscale instead of zscale when source resolution is not mod 2Fixed incorrect PAR when reading from an anamorphic AV1 video trackRemoved an artificial bitrate limit on VP9 CQ mode

Via Handbrake

Now that we are done with Handbrake's new 1.70 updates, let's talk a bit about encoding performance on the respective platforms. We all are well aware of the fact that Team Green has seen a "generational" lead when it comes to both rendering and encoding performance, making it a viable choice for professionalists within the media industry. With this generation, unfortunately, Team Red has been unsuccessfully in closing the gap, and NVIDIA themselves have validated the fact that they are way ahead in terms of AV1 encoding speeds.

It will be interesting to see how NVIDIA and AMD hold up against each other in the future, but as far as what we are seeing, AMD needs to pace up, especially in this particular area. You can download the latest version of Handbrake here.

News Source: Handbrake