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Handbrake 0.9.4 released, includes 64-bit support

Filed under: Multimedia, Freeware, Open Source

It’s been a year in coming, but Handbrake, the multiplatform, open-source video transcoder, has been updated to version 0.9.4. It’s one of the tools I included in my list of 10 must-have apps for a new Mac.

That 10% performance improvement estimate appears to be very close to the mark, at least on my MacBook Pro. Using 0.9.3, Handbrake encodes would average around 27 – 29 frames per second when transcoding a VIDEO_TS folder to H.264. In 0.9.4, using the same settings, I’m seeing encoding rates of closer to 30 – 34 frames per second. This means that on my Mac, Handbrake is now transcoding DVDs in real time or faster thanks to the improvements in the new version.

The Handbrake team has trimmed some of the fat from this release. There are no more presets for the PSP, PS3, or Xbox 360; all three have been replaced with a “Normal” preset that should work on any device that supports Main Profile H.264. Handbrake has also removed support for transcoding to AVI, OGG, and XviD. Personally I won’t miss any of these, as I always transcoded to H.264, but for people who are still clinging to AVI (for whatever reason), this update will force them to abandon the format.

Another new feature that looks like it’ll be incredibly useful is Live Preview, which allows you to encode a small portion of the video source using current settings and then see what it looks like. This will keep you from having to encode the entire video only to find out two hours later that one of your settings was off, forcing you to start all over again.

Handbrake 0.9.4 is a free download, available here.

TUAWHandbrake 0.9.4 released, includes 64-bit support originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TheFind launches “buying engine,” product search from 500,000 stores

TheFind, a Mountain View, Calif-based startup that applies machine learning and semantic search to shopping, says comparison buying sites only skim the surface of all the millions of products out there on the web.

So it’s launching a “buying engine” today that crawls half a million stores for products and coupons. The site shows reviews alongside products and highlights coupons. It attaches store information in a pop-up that shows the sellers trust and security ratings. There is also a “green” search for environmentally conscious products.

“The truth of why none of the other comparison shopping sites have ultimately become successful brands is because they don’t offer everyone,” said Ron Levi, the vice president of product for TheFind. “When you’re only showing 10 or 15 stores out of hundreds, it’s just not comprehensive.”

TheFind is backed by at least $26.5 million in three rounds of funding from Redpoint Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Bain Capital Ventures. Levi said the site has 13.5 million unique visitors a month and hit cash flow profitability in December of last year.

The company is one of many comparison shopping sites we covered way back in 2007. But its competitors like Shopping.com (owned by eBay), Shopzilla (owned by Scripps) and Pricegrabber (bought by Experian) aren’t independent. The company earns revenue from affiliate fees so when a user actually buys a product, TheFind earns a small portion of that. It also earns income from clicks when users are driven to other comparison shopping sites.

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