New Directions for Building HandBrake SVN

Update (5/15/09): I have working binaries available in my PPA repository. Directions for adding it to your package manager are available here.

A couple of months ago, the HandBrake devs implemented some major changes to the build procedure for HandBrake from the project's SVN repository. I'm not really sure why they did this, but it seems to have cut a couple of dependencies, which is nice*. Here's the new method that worked for me on Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex and 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope (adapted from their build instructions in the readme).

Step 1: download the dependencies
In a terminal, type:

sudo aptitude install subversion build-essential m4 wget autotools-dev yasm autoconf intltool libtool libbz2-dev zlib1g-dev libglib2.0-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev libgtk2.0-dev libhal-dev libhal-storage-dev libgstreamer0.10-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-dev automake1.9 libnotify-dev libwebkit-dev

Update (6/18/09): as of svn 2550, libgtkhtml-3.14-dev was replaced by libwebkit-dev.
Users of OpenSuSE may need to download the additional dependencies zypper and in to build the CLI, as well as gtkhml2 and gtkhtml2-devel to build the GUI. Users of Red Hat/Fedora or derivatives may need to install the package groups "Development Tools," "Development Libraries," "X Software Development," and "GNOME Software Development," as well as zlib-devel, bzip2-devel, dbus-glib-devel, hal-devel, gtkhtml3-devel, gstreamer-devel, and gstreamer-plugins-base-devel.

Step 2: download the source from HandBrake's SVN repository
in a terminal, type:

svn checkout svn://svn.handbrake.fr/HandBrake/trunk hb-trunk

This will download a bunch of stuff and finish by telling you which revision you have checked out.

Step 3: switch to your newly created directory
in a terminal, type:

cd hb-trunk

Step 4: prepare the source for building
in a terminal, type:

./configure --launch

This command should take care of most of the remaining steps, i.e. making a scratch directory and compiling the source for both the CLI and GUI interfaces.

Step 5: install the GTK GUI
in a terminal, type:

cd build/gtk ; sudo make install

In you experienced any errors during Steps 4 or 5, you can attempt to run through the build functions manually:
In a terminal, type:

rm -rf build ; mkdir build ; cd build

then:

../configure ; make

and finally:

cd gtk ; make ; sudo make install

*Interestingly, the build process no longer invokes/requires jam, which had always been a vestigial requirement left over from HandBrake's roots in the venerable BeOS.

HandBrake with Live Video Previews

The HandBrake team has released version 0.9.3, which includes official, sanctioned builds of the GTK GUI in both 32- and 64-bit formats. This new version also brings a number of improvements that have been enjoyed by those of us using the SVN builds for some time to the rest of the HB users. However, new features are constantly being added, and the codec pool is always being updated, so I will continue to post the latest bleeding-edge builds here on my site, starting with svn1952, which includes live video previews (!), as well as a more recent version of the x264 and ffmpeg codecs.

Update (5/15/09): I have working binaries of the latest code available in my PPA repository. Directions for adding it to your package manager are available here.

Here's how the live preview looks. You can really get in there and see the direct impact of your changes. This leads to better cropping and a better sense for your end product. (this is my Mac x-forwarding GHB from my Ubuntu box. As you can see, the live previews even work through that):

For those of you who wish to compile on your own hardware (recommended for those with newer Core 2 Duo CPUs), the process is exactly the same as my previous SVN instructions, except for the addition of 2 new dependencies: libgstreamer0.10-dev and libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-dev. I've updated the instructions there to reflect the change.