Handbrake on Debian not aware of x265 despite installed

Question

I am about to convert a lot of old MKV files encoded with x264, which at the moment are un-downloadable, to more efficient HEVC (x265, H.265) format, using HandBrake software.

My system being Debian Jessie 8.6, fully updated.

I have installed handbrake and x265 packages from official repositories.

The problem is, I can't seem to be able to choose x265 in HandBrake.

On Linux Mint 18, there is no problem, it's just there.

On Debian 8.6, there is a package called handbrake, on Linux Mint 18 I have added a PPA and installed handbrake-gtk.

Versions seem to matter in this case:

Debian: 0.9.9 (x86_64)

Mint: 0.10.5 (x86_64)

Answer 1

The problem is in the Debian Jessie handbrake version, which is '0.9.9', and quite old in the style that Debian got us used.

Having a look at the official HandBrake site, in the news section they state:

• v0.10.5 - Few minor bug fixes since the 0.10.3 release. This includes improvements in large AVI file handling.

• v0.10.3 - Updated x265 to 1.8 which brings numerous bug fixes and some performance improvements.

So I would say you need at least 0.10.3, and would advise 0.10.5.

Unfortunately, there are no new packages in backports; - I would either try to install it from the Ubuntu PPA if the dependencies do not do something funny, or compile it by hand. Give it a try to the PPA first.

According to https://packages.debian.org/, stretch/Debian 9 already brings 0.10.5 with Debian patches - if in a pre-production/home server, I would recommend upgrading to Stretch.

As for compiling it in Jessie, see How To Install HandBrake 0.9.9 On Debian Jessie, Debian Sid And Debian Wheezy