Handbrake is a very powerful and versatile free software for encoding and compressing videos, which achieves exceptional results, both in terms of quality and size of the resulting file.
The first betas of the build for Apple's M1 are now available and users have started testing it.
Handbrake supports hardware (as well as software) compression, which takes advantage of the computer's capabilities much more.
Intel processors also have hardware compression, so they don't play at a disadvantage at this point.
The first tests carried out by a user, which appeared in the forums, give spectacular results with the Apple system which is more than 3 times faster than an Intel Core i9.
In the test, a Mac Mini with M1 with 8GB of ram was compared to an iMac with i9 processor (9900k) with Radeon 580x and with 48GB of ram.
It was compressed 5 minutes to 1080p with H265, taking the iMac 1 min 48 sec and taking the Mac Mini 34s.
Also, another interesting novelty is that the new system allows hardware compression with constant quality (CQ) or variable bit rate, something that was not possible with Handbrake on macOS.
Video encoding
Those of you who have been concerned with these issues will know that video encoding is one of the most demanding in terms of the power of a computer equipment.
It is not a use for people who are into video, it is used by almost all users. For example, to make a videoconference, which many do these days due to COVID. Your camera image needs to be processed to be compressed and sent over the internet, and it takes a lot of power. Or when you edit a video you recorded with your camera. Or when you want to use the Sidecar feature to work with your iPad and Mac as one team. Or send via AirPlay.
And it's not just about power, but also about consumption. Optimizing this process is key so that the battery doesn't drain immediately.
If your team gets very hot when you have a video conference (and you hear the fans blowing), be it on Zoom, Teams, Skype… it's because it takes a lot of effort to work on that video.
Putting dedicated hardware is very important as it does not take up the main processor process time, gets faster and consumes less battery. But it is important that the software is well done to take advantage of that hardware, that it is up to date and well designed.
For example, encoding a 2 hour 4k movie into H265 via software could take 50 hours without a problem on an i7 Mac with 16GB of ram, while the iPhone 11 is already capable of recording and compressing from all and 4 Once cameras in 4k in real time (which would be those 2h in 30 minutes) and consuming a very small part of the energy. Obviously Intel using hardware encoding is much faster than software, but this was meant to show the importance of specialized hardware.
So if the software is well done, this improvement will benefit everyone, both those who are into video and those who don't.
