“I have been using HandBrake for a long time. But recently, I found that HandBrake couldn’t handle some of the latest released DVD discs I purchased from Amazon. This is a big issue since I convert DVD movies frequently for posting video about film reviews onto my blog. I used to install free VLC media player to assist HandBrake to handle the disc decryption issue. But this seemed to fail its work recently. How can I solve this? Is there any wonderful HandBrake alternative to convert video/DVD/Blu-ray movies? What are the best HandBrake alternatives 2020?”

As an open-source and free media transcoder tool, HandBrake could help you encode video, DVD and Blu-ray movies to MP4 or MKV files for totally free, so as to help you easily play and watch Blu-ray/DVD/video files on any MP4/MKV compatible media players and devices. With the help of disc decryption tools like free VLC media player or libdvdcss, HandBrake could even handle copy-protected DVD and Blu-ray movies for encoding and converting.

However, there are occasions when HandBrake fails to do its job smoothly and perfectly. For example, some people have reported that their HandBrake failed to encode and convert DVD discs purchased from Amazon or other online stores even though they have installed free VLC and libdvdcss plugins. Therefore, many HandBrake customers have tried to search for an alternative to HandBrake. The question becomes: what are the best HandBrake alterantives?

Well, if you happen to have the same question and have been searching for the best alternative to HandBrake, check the below content. We would like to share 8 best HandBrake alternatives 2020 with you. You could use these HandBrake alternatives to freely encode and convert video/DVD/Blu-ray movie files for unlimited uses.

Part 1: Limitations of HandBrake

Why do we want an alternative to HandBrake? Isn’t HandBrake good enough to complete your tasks? Actually, HandBrake has been one of the most popular media encoder tools and gained great popularity among the world. Besides converting video, DVD and Blu-ray movie files, HandBrake enable enables you to edit DVD/video/Blu-ray files like trimming, cropping, etc., extract subtitles from DVD, etc. However, there are quite a few disadvantages of HandBrake, which makes it far from perfect.

Check the limitations of HandBrake below:

  1. HandBrake alone doesn’t encode copy-protected DVD and Blu-ray movies. You have to install disc decryption plugins like VLC or libdvdcss as assistant for Blu-ray/DVD decryption.
  2. HandBrake only outputs MKV and MP4 files, which is a little bit insufficient since sometimes you may need to encode video/DVD/Blu-ray files into videos in formats other than MP4/MKV.
  3. We know HandBrake is able to edit media files like trimming, cropping, etc. but the settings for editing and conversions on the flipside are not always easy to deal with.
  4. You don’t get instant preview of video editing and subtitle/audio tracks selecting.
  5. It takes a lot of time and then there are errors. The latest version fixes some old bugs but there are hiccups.
  6. The open source software also doesn’t support all video formats as input.
  7. HandBrake takes quite long duration to complete media encoding, which could be optimized for higher conversion speed.

There are still many other limitations of HandBrake. All these shortages have made the need of HandBrake alternatives. In the below content, we would show you 2020 8 best HandBrake alternatives to let you get better media encoding and converting experience.

Part 2: 2023 Best 8 HandBrake Alternatives

Below, we have collected 8 best HandBrake alternatives for 2020 with brief introduction. However, it should be noted that the best HandBrake alternative should meet your needs most. Just choose one according to your own needs.

No.1 best HandBrake alternative – Leawo Prof. Media

Leawo Prof. Media is the No. 1 best alternative to HandBrake. As a professional and all-in-one media converter suite, Leawo Prof. Media offers all HandBrake can do and even those HandBrake can’t do. It not only helps you encode and convert Blu-ray/DVD/video/audio files, but also fulfills your other requirements upon Blu-ray, DVD, video, audio, online video, photos, etc. With Leawo Prof. Media, you could:

  1. Decrypt, rip and convert Blu-ray/DVD movies to video/audio files in 200+ file formats for various uses. Better than HandBrake that requires extra disc decryption plugins, Leawo Prof. Media alone could process copy-protected Blu-ray/DVD movies for converting.
  2. Convert video and audio files between 200+ file formats for various devices and players.
  3. Turn photos into photo slideshow video and edit generated photo slideshows via internal editor.
  4. Burn video/photos to Blu-ray/DVD disc, folder and/or ISO image files, with multiple disc menu templates preset and disc menu editor enabled.
  5. Download online videos from 1000+ video sharing sites like YouTube, Facebook, Veoh, VEVO, etc.
  6. Copy and back up Blu-ray/DVD movies to computer or blank disc in 1:1, movie-only or custom mode, supporting 3D Blu-ray backup.
  7. Remove Cinavia protection upon Blu-ray discs to help you get Cinavia-free movie files for unlimited playback.
  8. Convert 2D Blu-ray/DVD/video to 3D movies in 6 different 3D movie effects and 3D depth adjustable.

Besides these main functions, Leawo Prof. Media actually provides other useful features, such as editing Blu-ray/DVD/video files, selecting disc menu and even designing disc menu, choosing subtitles and audio tracks, providing instant preview and unlimited movie playback, etc. It’s far better than HandBrake.

No.2 best HandBrake alternative – Freemake Video Converter

Freemake is a powerful, high quality freeware that could help you convert video free to AVI, MP4, WMV, MKV, MPEG, 3GP, DVD, MP3, iPod, iPhone, PSP, Android, rip & burn DVD, convert to Flash FLV & SWF, burn Blu-ray, and upload to YouTube, etc. You could get more functions from FreeMake Video Converter over HandBrake. Unfortunately, although it doesn't contain extra bundled software, the latest version of Freemake Video Converter adds a watermark to ripped videos. If you can live with that, it's one of the most convenient DVD rippers around.

No.3 best HandBrake alternative – MakeMKV

MakeMKV is a program designed for ripping DVD and Blu-Ray disc video. It works by decrypting proprietary discs to transfer codecs from the formats VOB and M2TS into MKV, preserving the necessary data without doing any lossy codec conversion. The MKV format was chosen because of Matroska's goal to make a file format that acts like a DVD, with its simple container design to store any amount of video/audio tracks, with all meta-information including chapters. MakeMKV can also stream the output.
MakeMKV alone could handle copy-protected DVD and Blu-ray movies, which is much better than HandBrake. You could get quality lossless MKV files from DVD and Blu-ray files. However, as to its limitations, obviously, MakeMKV is quite similar to HandBrake.  

No.4 best HandBrake alternative – File Converter

File Converter, as its name implies, is a tool that allows you to convert and compress one or multiple files into the file you want. It supports converting videos, audios, images and also documents. You can check the supported output video/audio formats below:
From: 3GP, AIFF, APE, AVI, BIK, CDA, FLAC, FLV, M4A, MKV, MOV, MP3, MP4, OGA, OGG, WAV, WMA, WMV, WebM
To: FLAC, AAC, OGG, MP3, WAV, WebM

No.5 best HandBrake alternative – XMedia Recode

XMedia Recode can convert nearly all popular audio and video formats including 3GP, 3GPP, 3GPP2, AAC, AC3, AMR, ASF, AVI, AVISynth, DVD, FLAC, FLV, H.261, H.263, H.264, M4A , M1V, M2V, M4V, Matroska (MKV), MMF, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, TS, TRP, MP2, MP3, MP4, MP4V, MOV, OGG, PSP, (S) VCD, SWF , VOB, WAV, WMA and WMV. As to DVD encoding, XMedia Recode can only convert unprotected DVDs.

No.6 best HandBrake alternative – VidCoder

VidCoder is an open-source DVD/Blu-ray ripping and video transcoding application for Windows. It uses HandBrake as its encoding engine. Note that VidCoder can rip DVDs and Blu-Rays but does not defeat the encryption added to commercial discs. If your source Blu-ray/DVD movie files are copy protected, you may try other HandBrake alternatives mentioned above.

No.7 best HandBrake alternative – FFmpeg

FFmpeg is an open source project that develops libraries and programs for handling multimedia data. FFmpeg is the home to libavcodec, a codec library used by a large spectrum of programs, and libavformat, a mux and demux library for containers.

No.8 best HandBrake alternative – Avidemux

Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs. Tasks can be automated using projects, job queue and powerful scripting.

Part 3. Conclusion

HandBrake is a wonderful choice for you to encode and convert video/DVD/Blu-ray movie files. There are various HandBrake alternatives that could help you do what HandBrake can and can’t do for you. Among all these top HandBrake alternatives, some of them work with videos, while some others work with both DVD and Blu-ray movies. Leawo Prof. Media offers you the most comprehensive solutions upon nearly all media files, including Blu-ray, DVD, video, audio, ISO image files, online videos, pictures, etc. You will get better digital entertainment with it.