Feature Request - No Encoding but Copy

[Djabx]

Hello everyone,

I used HandBrake to convert some video from mp4 to mkv but HandBrake re-encode everything (video / audio).
I whished there is an option to just copy and not re-encode.

BTW: now I use ffmpeg -vcodec copy -acodec copy

[sr55]

Sorry, adding video passthrough is not planned. HandBrake is designed to be a video transcoder. It wasn't designed to allow passthrough. Retrofitting it in after the fact in a tool that just isn't designed for this task isn't feasible.

Duplicates of #193

Edit, since this is getting linked around:

HandBrake is not a front-end to ffmpeg CLI. So it's not a simple case of passing some command line arguments to ffmpeg. HandBrake has it's own AV engine that sits on top of libav and other libraries. This pipeline wasn't designed with passthru in mind. As such, it would require a lot of work to change.

[giddie]

Really sorry to drag this up again, but I can't find detailed information about this anywhere. I'm a software engineer wondering why video passthrough would be difficult to achieve. In particular, my use case is reading h264 data from Blu-Rays whilst transcoding audio.

My guess is that your input stage passes uncompressed video data through to the processing stage, meaning that the video is always decoded from its native h264 before it even reaches the transcoding core. Is that right? Presumably, the audio follows a different, less structured route through to the output stage, which is what allows you to offer a pass-through option for audio?

So I'm quite curious to know what degree of modification would be required in the video pipeline to permit passing raw data straight through from the input to the output? Is this something you'd accept patches for?

[jstebbins]

It's not a question of difficulty. The primary reason we don't do it is it is out of scope. HandBrake is a transcoder, not a muxer.

As far as the technical issues go, video passthru is simply not compatible with some of the things HandBrake does for you. Numerous things would have to be disabled whenever video passthru is selected (e.g. all filters). One of the core components of HandBrakes processing pipeline is a sync phase that corrects problems that causes sync issues during playback. For example Apple video players do not tolerate gaps in timestamps. All gaps between video or audio frames must be filled or you lose sync during playback. Video passthru is would require disabling this sync module. Some videos that play correctly when transcoded would not play correctly when passed thru.

[giddie]

OK, I get that. Technically, it's not in scope for the project. Pragmatically, however, many people view Handbrake as their AV swiss army knife. To be honest, other than MakeMKV (which is closed-source, as I'm sure you know), I'm not aware of any other tool that is capable of reading directly from BluRay. There are simple enough CLI tools for DVD (just about), but BluRay support is very sparse right now. I know it's not your problem; I guess I'm just saying that you'd make a lot of people's lives easier if you were open to this.

Specifically, Handbrake's title selection, audio & subtitle extraction (with pass-through), and muxing are already fantastic. Besides offering a fantastic transcoder, you're 80% of the way to offering the only full-featured, completely open-source alternative for BluRay backups. I know that's not technically transcoding, but it is a massive deal for people who use Handbrake to backup their movie collections.

[jstebbins]

Pragmatically, however, many people view Handbrake as their AV swiss army knife.

Many people are mistaken. I can't fix that ;) We are quite clear about what HandBrake is and is not in our documentation.
https://handbrake.fr/docs/en/latest/introduction/about.html

[giddie]

Yes, that's fair. In the meantime, however, there is no alternative. That's why you have these expectations placed on you. I'm not saying you have to take your project in a direction you're not comfortable with; I'm just pointing out that the reason you get this pressure from users is that for a significant number of them, you're nearly the tool they want, and the exact tool they want does not currently exist.

[eturk1]

Thanks for this thread! I helps so I don't keep searching for this feature. Makes sense.

For others that find this thread,
I found opensource Avidemux which does have a simple copy passthrough of video & audio. Useful when one just wants to change the video or audio or maybe just remove some audio tracks no longer needed.

[giddie]

Also MKVToolNix is a fantastic set of tools for chopping and changing MKV files, but it also doesn't help get video from BluRay onto your hard disk.

[eturk1]

Also MKVToolNix is a fantastic set of tools for chopping and changing MKV files, but it also doesn't help get video from BluRay onto your hard disk.

Thanks for the tip! MKVToolNix much better for passthrough/copy, really fast & also ATMOS passthrough, which explodes Avidemux.