HandBrake 0.9.6 Released [Video Transcoder]

HandBrake is a cross-platform video transcoder that supports most common multimedia formats, DVDs or Bluray-like sources that aren't copy-protected. The application can even create chapters or add subtitles.

After more than a year, a new HandBrake version has been released: 0.9.6, and it includes many improvements, such as:

• updated encoders / decoders
• audio gain control (increase/decrease audio volume) and a new advanced audio GUI section for gain and audio track names
• new AAC encoder
• FLAC encoder (16-bit, MKV container only)
• advanced options support for libavcodec
• improved "Normal" preset (much faster, similar file size and quality)
• added new device presets for Android phones/tablets recent and/or powerful devices
• many other improvements and bug fixes

For a complete list of changes, check out the HandBrake 0.9.6 changelog.

Install HandBrake

The latest HandBrake 0.9.6 is available in its official PPA for Ubuntu 11.10, 11.04, 10.10 and 10.04 users - add it and install Handbrake using the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stebbins/handbrake-releases
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install handbrake-gtk

HandBrake also comes with a command line tool, to install it, use this command:

sudo apt-get install handbrake-cli

For Windows, Mac OSX, Fedora binaries or source code, check out the HandBrake download page.

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New Optical Disks Burner / Manager: Silicon Empire

Silicon Empire is a new tool written in Qt to burn and manager optical disks like CDs, DVDs and Blu-Rays.

Please note that because I do not have a CD/DVD-ROM, I can't test the actual "burning" feature!

Silicon uses Cdrtools and lets you copy or burn a data disk, mount images or erase DVDs but it doesn't let you create an audio CD for now even though (oddly) it comes with a built-in music player (Minitunes) and even an image viewer - these (as well as the CD/DVD burning features) are called "Sapplications", which are basically plugins, so it might get more of these in the future.

Features:

• Burn, copy and erase optical disks
• Works on CDs, DVDs and BluRays
• Shows all informations of your Optical Discs and Devices before the process starts
• Queuing overlapping processes
• Mount/Unmount CD/DVD Images (.iso, .nrg, .bin, .mdf and .img files)
• CD/DVD Images Manager (Silicon Library)
• Drag and drop support
• Copy all or only a part of the optical disks

The UI looks very interesting: it comes with effects and theme support and the "Sapplications" open as tabs, with the top right menu changing dinamically, depending on the Sapplication you use. So if you like pretty-looking applications, give Silicon Empire a try!

Download Silicon Empire - for now, only Ubuntu .deb and source files are available, but Windows, MacOSX and other Linux distributions binaries will be available in the future.

Thanks to Mahdi for the tip!

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