A year after its last significant update, version 0.9.4 of the open-source video conversion program HandBrake has been released. The update incorporates the latest version of the x264 video encoder, offers 64-bit builds with 10 percent greater performance for most Intel-based Macs, adds soft subtitles which users can turn on or off, and includes a new live preview window. Also, input support has been improved for DVD and non-DVD sources, encoding now shifts to maintain a set quality rather than maintaining a constant bit rate, and unnecessary encoding presets have been eliminated. (Free, 4.9 MB)
Thoughtful, detailed coverage of the Mac, iPhone, and iPad, plus the best-selling Take Control ebooks.
- Upgrade to and Learn Lion with New Take Control Ebooks
- Our Favorite Hidden Features in Mac OS X Lion
- Lion Security: Building on the iOS Foundation
- Subtle Irritations in Lion
- Finding a Replacement for Quicken
- Lion Is a Quitter
- Dealing with Lion's Hidden Library
- Lion Application Compatibility Wiki
- Rosetta and Lion: Get Over It?
- Preparing for Lion: Find Your PowerPC Applications
Fill in Gaps in Pear Note
If you ever find yourself zoning out during a meeting or class, only later to realize that you forgot to take notes for 20 minutes, Pear Note makes it easy to fill in those gaps. To do so:
- Open your Pear Note document.
- Hit play.
- Click on the last text you did type to jump to that point in the recording.
- Click the lock to unlock the text of the note.
- Take notes on the part you missed.
Your new notes will be synced to the recording just as if you'd taken them live with the rest of your notes.
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Written by
Adam C. Engst
HandBrake 0.9.4
by Doug McLean 
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