How to install latest version of HandBrake – Debian

HandBrake is a free and open-source video transcoder tool. HandBrake can convert videos from almost any format to modern and vastly supported codecs. Today we’ll learn how can we install the latest version of HandBrake on our Debian server.

There are quite a few ways to install HandBrake on Debian but to get the latest version there are possible ways I found so far. One of them is to build HandBrake from their source code which can be pretty complicated depending on your experience. You guessed it right, the other one is very easy and that’s what I’m going to show you here.

We’ll need to add Deb Multimedia Packages to our sources list. But before we can do that we need to know which version of Debian we’ve installed on our server and the architecture of the distro. You can find all details using the command below –

cat /etc/*release; uname -m

PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="10"
VERSION="10 (buster)"
VERSION_CODENAME=buster
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/"
x86_64

In our case, we’re using Debian 10 (Buster) x64 and thus we can use the below one-liner to add Deb Multimedia Packages to our sources list –

cd /etc/apt/sources.list.d/; wget -q https://repo.b-cdn.net/debian-buster/multimedia-backports.list; wget -q http://www.deb-multimedia.org/pool/main/d/deb-multimedia-keyring/deb-multimedia-keyring_2016.8.1_all.deb; apt -y install ./deb-multimedia-keyring_2016.8.1_all.deb; rm -rf deb-multimedia-keyring_2016.8.1_all.deb; cd ~; apt update && apt upgrade -y

If you’re not using Debian 10 (Buster) x64 then you can always visit the official website of Deb Multimedia Packages to get the specific guide for your version of Debian OS.

Once we’ve added Deb Multimedia Packages to our sources list we can search for available HandBrake packages using the below command –

apt -t stable-backports search handbrake

Sorting… Done
Full Text Search… Done
handbrake/stable-backports 1:1.3.3-dmo0~bpo10+2 all
Versatile DVD ripper and video transcoder

handbrake-cli/stable-backports,now 1:1.3.3-dmo0~bpo10+2 amd64
Versatile DVD ripper and video transcoder (command line)

handbrake-gtk/stable-backports 1:1.3.3-dmo0~bpo10+2 amd64
Versatile DVD ripper and video transcoder (GTK GUI)

As you can see we’ve got the latest versions of both HandBrake GUI and HandBrake CLI available for installation. In my case, I’ll install the CLI version using the below command –

apt -t stable-backports install handbrake-cli -y

Once installed you can verify the HandBrake CLI version using the below command –

HandBrakeCLI –version

[13:14:36] hb_init: starting libhb thread
[13:14:36] thread 7f476a1c6700 started ("libhb")
HandBrake 1.3.3

HandBrake has exited.

Feel free to post comments if you face any issues with this tutorial and I would be happy to help. Also, check out these articles –
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