/docker-handbrake

Docker container for HandBrake

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Docker container for HandBrake

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This is a Docker container for HandBrake.

The GUI of the application is accessed through a modern web browser (no installation or configuration needed on the client side) or via any VNC client.

A fully automated mode is also available: drop files into a watch folder and let HandBrake process them without any user interaction.

HandBrake logoHandBrake

HandBrake is a tool for converting video from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs.

Table of Content

Quick Start

NOTE: The Docker command provided in this quick start is given as an example and parameters should be adjusted to your need.

Launch the HandBrake docker container with the following command:

docker run -d \
    --name=handbrake \
    -p 5800:5800 \
    -v /docker/appdata/handbrake:/config:rw \
    -v $HOME:/storage:ro \
    -v $HOME/HandBrake/watch:/watch:rw \
    -v $HOME/HandBrake/output:/output:rw \
    jlesage/handbrake

Where:

  • /docker/appdata/handbrake: This is where the application stores its configuration, log and any files needing persistency.
  • $HOME: This location contains files from your host that need to be accessible by the application.
  • $HOME/HandBrake/watch: This is where videos to be automatically converted are located.
  • $HOME/HandBrake/output: This is where automatically converted video files are written.

Browse to http://your-host-ip:5800 to access the HandBrake GUI. Files from the host appear under the /storage folder in the container.

Usage

docker run [-d] \
    --name=handbrake \
    [-e <VARIABLE_NAME>=<VALUE>]... \
    [-v <HOST_DIR>:<CONTAINER_DIR>[:PERMISSIONS]]... \
    [-p <HOST_PORT>:<CONTAINER_PORT>]... \
    jlesage/handbrake
Parameter Description
-d Run the container in the background. If not set, the container runs in the foreground.
-e Pass an environment variable to the container. See the Environment Variables section for more details.
-v Set a volume mapping (allows to share a folder/file between the host and the container). See the Data Volumes section for more details.
-p Set a network port mapping (exposes an internal container port to the host). See the Ports section for more details.

Environment Variables

To customize some properties of the container, the following environment variables can be passed via the -e parameter (one for each variable). Value of this parameter has the format <VARIABLE_NAME>=<VALUE>.

Variable Description Default
USER_ID ID of the user the application runs as. See User/Group IDs to better understand when this should be set. 1000
GROUP_ID ID of the group the application runs as. See User/Group IDs to better understand when this should be set. 1000
SUP_GROUP_IDS Comma-separated list of supplementary group IDs of the application. (unset)
UMASK Mask that controls how file permissions are set for newly created files. The value of the mask is in octal notation. By default, this variable is not set and the default umask of 022 is used, meaning that newly created files are readable by everyone, but only writable by the owner. See the following online umask calculator: http://wintelguy.com/umask-calc.pl (unset)
TZ TimeZone of the container. Timezone can also be set by mapping /etc/localtime between the host and the container. Etc/UTC
KEEP_APP_RUNNING When set to 1, the application will be automatically restarted if it crashes or if a user quits it. 0
APP_NICENESS Priority at which the application should run. A niceness value of -20 is the highest priority and 19 is the lowest priority. By default, niceness is not set, meaning that the default niceness of 0 is used. NOTE: A negative niceness (priority increase) requires additional permissions. In this case, the container should be run with the docker option --cap-add=SYS_NICE. (unset)
CLEAN_TMP_DIR When set to 1, all files in the /tmp directory are deleted during the container startup. 1
DISPLAY_WIDTH Width (in pixels) of the application's window. 1280
DISPLAY_HEIGHT Height (in pixels) of the application's window. 768
SECURE_CONNECTION When set to 1, an encrypted connection is used to access the application's GUI (either via a web browser or VNC client). See the Security section for more details. 0
VNC_PASSWORD Password needed to connect to the application's GUI. See the VNC Password section for more details. (unset)
X11VNC_EXTRA_OPTS Extra options to pass to the x11vnc server running in the Docker container. WARNING: For advanced users. Do not use unless you know what you are doing. (unset)
ENABLE_CJK_FONT When set to 1, open-source computer font WenQuanYi Zen Hei is installed. This font contains a large range of Chinese/Japanese/Korean characters. 0
AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_PRESET HandBrake preset used by the automatic video converter. Identification of a preset must follow the format <CATEGORY>/<PRESET NAME>. See the Automatic Video Conversion section for more details. General/Very Fast 1080p30
AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_FORMAT Video container format used by the automatic video converter for output files. This is typically the video filename extension. See the Automatic Video Conversion section for more details. mp4
AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_KEEP_SOURCE When set to 0, a video that has been successfully converted is removed from the watch folder. 1
AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_VIDEO_FILE_EXTENSIONS Space-separated list of file extensions to be considered as video files. By default, this list is empty, meaning that the automatic video converter will let HandBrake automatically detects if a file, no matter its extension, is a video or not (note that extensions defined by the AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_NON_VIDEO_FILE_EXTENSIONS environment variable are always considered as non-video files). Normally, this variable doesn't need to be set. Usage of this variable is useful when only specific video files need to converted. (unset)
AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_NON_VIDEO_FILE_ACTION When set to ignore, a non-video file found in the watch folder is ignored. If set to copy, a non-video file is copied as-is to the output folder. ignore
AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_NON_VIDEO_FILE_EXTENSIONS Space-separated list of file extensions to be considered as not being videos. Most non-video files are properly rejected by HandBrake. However, some files, like images, are convertible by HandBrake even if they are not video files. jpg jpeg bmp png gif txt nfo
AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_OUTPUT_DIR Root directory where converted videos should be written. /output
AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_OUTPUT_SUBDIR Subdirectory of the output folder into which converted videos should be written. By default, this variable is not set, meaning that videos are saved directly into /output/. If Home/Movies is set, converted videos will be written to /output/Home/Movies. Use the special value SAME_AS_SRC to use the same subfolder as the source. For example, if the video source file is /watch/Movies/mymovie.mkv, the converted video will be written to /output/Movies/. (unset)
AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_OVERWRITE_OUTPUT Setting this to 1 allows the final destination file to be overwritten if it already exists. 0
AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_SOURCE_STABLE_TIME Time (in seconds) during which properties (e.g. size, time, etc) of a video file in the watch folder need to remain the same. This is to avoid processing a file that is being copied. 5
AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_SOURCE_MIN_DURATION Minimum title duration (in seconds). Shorter titles will be ignored. This applies only to video disc sources (ISO file, VIDEO_TS folder or BDMV folder). 10
AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_CHECK_INTERVAL Interval (in seconds) at which the automatic video converter checks for new files. 5
AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_MAX_WATCH_FOLDERS Maximum number of watch folders handled by the automatic video converter. 5
HANDBRAKE_DEBUG Setting this to 1 enables HandBrake debug logging for both the GUI and the automatic video converter. For the latter, the increased verbosity is reflected in /config/log/hb/conversion.log (container path). For the GUI, log messages are sent to /config/log/hb/handbrake.debug.log (container path). NOTE: When enabled, a lot of information is generated and the log file will grow quickly. Make sure to enable this temporarily and only when needed. (unset)
AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_NO_GUI_PROGRESS When set to 1, progress of videos converted by the automatic video converter is not shown in the HandBrake GUI. 0
AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_HANDBRAKE_CUSTOM_ARGS Custom arguments to pass to HandBrake when performing a conversion. (unset)
AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_INSTALL_PKGS Space-separated list of Alpine Linux packages to install. This is useful when the automatic video converter's hooks require tools not available in the container image. See https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/packages?name=&branch=v3.9&arch=x86_64 for the list of available Alpine Linux packages. (unset)

Data Volumes

The following table describes data volumes used by the container. The mappings are set via the -v parameter. Each mapping is specified with the following format: <HOST_DIR>:<CONTAINER_DIR>[:PERMISSIONS].

Container path Permissions Description
/config rw This is where the application stores its configuration, log and any files needing persistency.
/storage ro This location contains files from your host that need to be accessible by the application.
/watch rw This is where videos to be automatically converted are located.
/output rw This is where automatically converted video files are written.

Ports

Here is the list of ports used by the container. They can be mapped to the host via the -p parameter (one per port mapping). Each mapping is defined in the following format: <HOST_PORT>:<CONTAINER_PORT>. The port number inside the container cannot be changed, but you are free to use any port on the host side.

Port Mapping to host Description
5800 Mandatory Port used to access the application's GUI via the web interface.
5900 Optional Port used to access the application's GUI via the VNC protocol. Optional if no VNC client is used.

Changing Parameters of a Running Container

As can be seen, environment variables, volume and port mappings are all specified while creating the container.

The following steps describe the method used to add, remove or update parameter(s) of an existing container. The general idea is to destroy and re-create the container:

  1. Stop the container (if it is running):
docker stop handbrake
  1. Remove the container:
docker rm handbrake
  1. Create/start the container using the docker run command, by adjusting parameters as needed.

NOTE: Since all application's data is saved under the /config container folder, destroying and re-creating a container is not a problem: nothing is lost and the application comes back with the same state (as long as the mapping of the /config folder remains the same).

Docker Compose File

Here is an example of a docker-compose.yml file that can be used with Docker Compose.

Make sure to adjust according to your needs. Note that only mandatory network ports are part of the example.

version: '3'
services:
  handbrake:
    image: jlesage/handbrake
    ports:
      - "5800:5800"
    volumes:
      - "/docker/appdata/handbrake:/config:rw"
      - "$HOME:/storage:ro"
      - "$HOME/HandBrake/watch:/watch:rw"
      - "$HOME/HandBrake/output:/output:rw"

Docker Image Update

Because features are added, issues are fixed, or simply because a new version of the containerized application is integrated, the Docker image is regularly updated. Different methods can be used to update the Docker image.

The system used to run the container may have a built-in way to update containers. If so, this could be your primary way to update Docker images.

An other way is to have the image be automatically updated with Watchtower. Watchtower is a container-based solution for automating Docker image updates. This is a "set and forget" type of solution: once a new image is available, Watchtower will seamlessly perform the necessary steps to update the container.

Finally, the Docker image can be manually updated with these steps:

  1. Fetch the latest image:
docker pull jlesage/handbrake
  1. Stop the container:
docker stop handbrake
  1. Remove the container:
docker rm handbrake
  1. Create and start the container using the docker run command, with the the same parameters that were used when it was deployed initially.

Synology

For owners of a Synology NAS, the following steps can be used to update a container image.

  1. Open the Docker application.
  2. Click on Registry in the left pane.
  3. In the search bar, type the name of the container (jlesage/handbrake).
  4. Select the image, click Download and then choose the latest tag.
  5. Wait for the download to complete. A notification will appear once done.
  6. Click on Container in the left pane.
  7. Select your HandBrake container.
  8. Stop it by clicking Action->Stop.
  9. Clear the container by clicking Action->Reset (or Action->Clear if you don't have the latest Docker application). This removes the container while keeping its configuration.
  10. Start the container again by clicking Action->Start. NOTE: The container may temporarily disappear from the list while it is re-created.

unRAID

For unRAID, a container image can be updated by following these steps:

  1. Select the Docker tab.
  2. Click the Check for Updates button at the bottom of the page.
  3. Click the update ready link of the container to be updated.

User/Group IDs

When using data volumes (-v flags), permissions issues can occur between the host and the container. For example, the user within the container may not exist on the host. This could prevent the host from properly accessing files and folders on the shared volume.

To avoid any problem, you can specify the user the application should run as.

This is done by passing the user ID and group ID to the container via the USER_ID and GROUP_ID environment variables.

To find the right IDs to use, issue the following command on the host, with the user owning the data volume on the host:

id <username>

Which gives an output like this one:

uid=1000(myuser) gid=1000(myuser) groups=1000(myuser),4(adm),24(cdrom),27(sudo),46(plugdev),113(lpadmin)

The value of uid (user ID) and gid (group ID) are the ones that you should be given the container.

Accessing the GUI

Assuming that container's ports are mapped to the same host's ports, the graphical interface of the application can be accessed via:

  • A web browser:
http://<HOST IP ADDR>:5800
  • Any VNC client:
<HOST IP ADDR>:5900

Security

By default, access to the application's GUI is done over an unencrypted connection (HTTP or VNC).

Secure connection can be enabled via the SECURE_CONNECTION environment variable. See the Environment Variables section for more details on how to set an environment variable.

When enabled, application's GUI is performed over an HTTPs connection when accessed with a browser. All HTTP accesses are automatically redirected to HTTPs.

When using a VNC client, the VNC connection is performed over SSL. Note that few VNC clients support this method. SSVNC is one of them.

SSVNC

SSVNC is a VNC viewer that adds encryption security to VNC connections.

While the Linux version of SSVNC works well, the Windows version has some issues. At the time of writing, the latest version 1.0.30 is not functional, as a connection fails with the following error:

ReadExact: Socket error while reading

However, for your convenience, an unofficial and working version is provided here:

https://github.com/jlesage/docker-baseimage-gui/raw/master/tools/ssvnc_windows_only-1.0.30-r1.zip

The only difference with the official package is that the bundled version of stunnel has been upgraded to version 5.49, which fixes the connection problems.

Certificates

Here are the certificate files needed by the container. By default, when they are missing, self-signed certificates are generated and used. All files have PEM encoded, x509 certificates.

Container Path Purpose Content
/config/certs/vnc-server.pem VNC connection encryption. VNC server's private key and certificate, bundled with any root and intermediate certificates.
/config/certs/web-privkey.pem HTTPs connection encryption. Web server's private key.
/config/certs/web-fullchain.pem HTTPs connection encryption. Web server's certificate, bundled with any root and intermediate certificates.

NOTE: To prevent any certificate validity warnings/errors from the browser or VNC client, make sure to supply your own valid certificates.

NOTE: Certificate files are monitored and relevant daemons are automatically restarted when changes are detected.

VNC Password

To restrict access to your application, a password can be specified. This can be done via two methods:

  • By using the VNC_PASSWORD environment variable.
  • By creating a .vncpass_clear file at the root of the /config volume. This file should contain the password in clear-text. During the container startup, content of the file is obfuscated and moved to .vncpass.

The level of security provided by the VNC password depends on two things:

  • The type of communication channel (encrypted/unencrypted).
  • How secure the access to the host is.

When using a VNC password, it is highly desirable to enable the secure connection to prevent sending the password in clear over an unencrypted channel.

ATTENTION: Password is limited to 8 characters. This limitation comes from the Remote Framebuffer Protocol RFC (see section 7.2.2). Any characters beyond the limit are ignored.

Reverse Proxy

The following sections contain NGINX configurations that need to be added in order to reverse proxy to this container.

A reverse proxy server can route HTTP requests based on the hostname or the URL path.

Routing Based on Hostname

In this scenario, each hostname is routed to a different application/container.

For example, let's say the reverse proxy server is running on the same machine as this container. The server would proxy all HTTP requests sent to handbrake.domain.tld to the container at 127.0.0.1:5800.

Here are the relevant configuration elements that would be added to the NGINX configuration:

map $http_upgrade $connection_upgrade {
	default upgrade;
	''      close;
}

upstream docker-handbrake {
	# If the reverse proxy server is not running on the same machine as the
	# Docker container, use the IP of the Docker host here.
	# Make sure to adjust the port according to how port 5800 of the
	# container has been mapped on the host.
	server 127.0.0.1:5800;
}

server {
	[...]

	server_name handbrake.domain.tld;

	location / {
	        proxy_pass http://docker-handbrake;
	}

	location /websockify {
		proxy_pass http://docker-handbrake;
		proxy_http_version 1.1;
		proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
		proxy_set_header Connection $connection_upgrade;
		proxy_read_timeout 86400;
	}
}

Routing Based on URL Path

In this scenario, the hostname is the same, but different URL paths are used to route to different applications/containers.

For example, let's say the reverse proxy server is running on the same machine as this container. The server would proxy all HTTP requests for server.domain.tld/handbrake to the container at 127.0.0.1:5800.

Here are the relevant configuration elements that would be added to the NGINX configuration:

map $http_upgrade $connection_upgrade {
	default upgrade;
	''      close;
}

upstream docker-handbrake {
	# If the reverse proxy server is not running on the same machine as the
	# Docker container, use the IP of the Docker host here.
	# Make sure to adjust the port according to how port 5800 of the
	# container has been mapped on the host.
	server 127.0.0.1:5800;
}

server {
	[...]

	location = /handbrake {return 301 $scheme://$http_host/handbrake/;}
	location /handbrake/ {
		proxy_pass http://docker-handbrake/;
		location /handbrake/websockify {
			proxy_pass http://docker-handbrake/websockify/;
			proxy_http_version 1.1;
			proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
			proxy_set_header Connection $connection_upgrade;
			proxy_read_timeout 86400;
		}
	}
}

Shell Access

To get shell access to the running container, execute the following command:

docker exec -ti CONTAINER sh

Where CONTAINER is the ID or the name of the container used during its creation (e.g. crashplan-pro).

Access to Optical Drive(s)

By default, a Docker container doesn't have access to host's devices. However, access to one or more device can be granted with the --device DEV parameter.

Optical drives usually have /dev/srX as device. For example, the first drive is /dev/sr0, the second /dev/sr1, and so on. To allow HandBrake to access the first drive, this parameter is needed:

--device /dev/sr0

To easily find devices of optical drives, start the container and look at its log for messages similar to these ones:

...
[cont-init.d] 95-check-optical-drive.sh: executing...
[cont-init.d] 95-check-optical-drive.sh: looking for usable optical drives...
[cont-init.d] 95-check-optical-drive.sh: found optical drive /dev/sr0, but it is not usable because is not exposed to the container.
[cont-init.d] 95-check-optical-drive.sh: no usable optical drive found.
[cont-init.d] 95-check-optical-drive.sh: exited 0.
...

Since HandBrake can decrypt DVD video discs, their conversion can be performed directly from the optical device. From the graphical interface, click the Open Source button and browse through the file system to find your optical drive device (e.g. /dev/sr0).

Automatic Video Conversion

This container has an automatic video converter built-in. This is useful to batch-convert videos without user interaction.

Basically, files copied to the /watch container folder are automatically converted by HandBrake to a pre-defined video format according to a pre-defined preset. Both the format and the preset are specified via environment variables:

Variable Default
AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_PRESET "General/Very Fast 1080p30"
AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_FORMAT "mp4"

See the Environment Variables section for details about setting environment variables.

NOTE: A preset is identified by its category and its name.

NOTE: All default presets, along with personalized/custom ones, can be seen with the HandBrake GUI.

NOTE: Converted videos are stored, by default, to the /output folder of the container.

NOTE: The status and progression of conversions performed by the automatic video converter can be seen from both the GUI and the container's log. Container's log can be obtained by executing the command docker logs handbrake, where handbrake is the name of the container. Also, full details about the conversion are stored in /config/log/hb/conversion.log (container path).

Multiple Watch Folders

If needed, up to 4 additionnal watch folders can be used:

  • /watch2
  • /watch3
  • /watch4
  • /watch5

This is useful in scenarios where videos need to be converted by different presets. For example, one could use a watch folder for movies and another watch folder for TV shows, both having different encoding quality requirements.

By default, additional watch folders inherits the same settings has the main one (/watch). A setting for a particular watch folder can be overrided by adding its index to the corresponding environment variable name.

For example, to set the HandBrake preset used to convert videos in /watch2, the environment variable AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_PRESET_2 is used. AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_PRESET_3 is used for /watch3, and so on.

All settings related to the automatic video converter can be overrided for each additional watch folder:

  • AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_PRESET
  • AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_FORMAT
  • AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_SOURCE_STABLE_TIME
  • AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_SOURCE_MIN_DURATION
  • AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_OUTPUT_DIR
  • AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_OUTPUT_SUBDIR
  • AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_OVERWRITE_OUTPUT
  • AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_KEEP_SOURCE
  • AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_VIDEO_FILE_EXTENSIONS
  • AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_NON_VIDEO_FILE_ACTION
  • AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_NON_VIDEO_FILE_EXTENSIONS

Video Discs

The automatic video converter supports video discs, in the following format:

  • ISO image file.
  • DVD video disc folder containing the VIDEO_TS folder.
  • Blu-ray video disc folder containing the BDMV folder.

Note that folder names are case sensitive. For example, video_ts, Video_Ts or Bdmv won't be treated as discs, but as normal directories.

When the source is a disc folder, the name of the converted video file will match to one of its folder. For example, /watch/MyMovie/VIDEO_TS will produce a video file with name MyMovie.mp4.

Video discs can have multiple titles (the main movie, previews, extras, etc). In a such case, each title is converted to its own file. These files have the suffix .title-XX, where XX is the title number. For example, if the file MyMovie.iso has 2 titles, the following files would be generated:

  • MyMovie.title-1.mp4
  • MyMovie.title-2.mp4

It is possible to ignore titles shorted than a specific amount of time. By default, only titles longer than 10 seconds are processed. This duration can be adjusted via the AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_SOURCE_MIN_DURATION environment variable. See the Environment Variables section for details about setting environment variables.

Hooks

Custom actions can be performed using hooks. Hooks are shell scripts executed by the automatic video converter.

NOTE: Hooks are always invoked via /bin/sh, ignoring any shebang the script may have.

Hooks are optional and by default, no one is defined. A hook is defined and executed when the script is found at a specific location.

The following table describe available hooks:

Container location Description Parameter(s)
/config/hooks/pre_conversion.sh Hook executed before the beginning of a video conversion. The first argument is the path of the converted video. The second argument is the path to the source file. Finally, the third argument is the name of the Handbrake preset that will be used to convert the video.
/config/hooks/post_conversion.sh Hook executed when the conversion of a video file is terminated. The first parameter is the status of the conversion. A value of 0 indicates that the conversion terminated successfuly. Any other value represent a failure. The second argument is the path to the converted video (the output). The third argument is the path to the source file. Finally, the fourth argument is the name of the Handbrake preset used to convert the video.
`/config/post_watch_folder_processing.sh Hook executed after all videos in the watch folder have been processed. The path of the watch folder.

During the first start of the container, example hooks are installed in /config/hooks/. Example scripts have the suffix .example. For example, you can use /config/hooks/post_conversion.sh.example as a starting point.

NOTE: Keep in mind that this container has the minimal set of packages required to run HandBrake. This may limit actions that can be performed in hooks.

Temporary Conversion Directory

A video being converted is written in a hidden, temporary directory under the root of the output directory (/output by default). Once a conversion successfully terminates, the video file is moved to its final location.

This feature can be useful for scenarios where the output folder is monitored by another application: with proper configuration, one can make sure this application only "sees" the final, converted video file and not the transient versions.

If the monitoring application ignores hidden directories, then nothing special is required and the application should always see the final file.

However, if the monitoring application handles hidden directories, the automatic video converter should be configured with the AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_OUTPUT_SUBDIR environment variable sets to a subdirectory. The application can then be configured to monitor this subdirectory. For example, if AUTOMATED_CONVERSION_OUTPUT_SUBDIR is set to TV Shows and /output is mapped to $HOME/appvolumes/HandBrake on the host, $HOME/appvolumes/HandBrake/TV Shows should be monitored by the application.

Intel Quick Sync Video

Intel Quick Sync Video is Intel's brand for its dedicated video encoding and decoding hardware core. It is a technology that is capable of offloading video decoding and encoding task to the integrated GPU, thus saving the CPU usage to do other tasks. As a specialized hardware core on the processor die, Quick Sync offers a much more power efficient video processing which is much superior to video encoding on a CPU.

For HandBrake to be able to use hardware-accelerated encoding, the following are required:

  • Have a compatible Intel processor. To determine if your CPU has the Quick Sync Video hardware, consult this list from the Intel Ark website. The model name of your processor is printed to the container's log during its startup. Look for a message like this: 
    [cont-init.d] 95-check-qsv.sh: Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz
  • The Intel i915 graphic driver must be loaded on the host.
  • The /dev/dri device must be exposed to the container. This is done by adding the --device /dev/dri parameter to the docker run command.

When Intel Quick Sync Video is properly enabled, HandBrake offers the following video encoder:

H.264 (Intel QSV)

If this encoder is not part of the list, something is wrong and looking at the container's log can give more details about the issue.

NOTE: In most cases, HandBrake can successfully access the /dev/dri device without changing anything on the host side. This is possible because the user under which the container is running is automatically added to the group owning the /dev/dri device. However, this method doesn't work if the device is owned by the group root. The problem can be fixed using one of the following methods:

  • Running the container as root (USER_ID=0).
  • Adding, on the host, read/write permissions for all to the /dev/dri device: 
    sudo chmod a+wr /dev/dri/*
  • Changing, on the host, the group owning the /dev/dri device. For example, to change the group to video: 
    sudo chown root:video /dev/dri/*

unRAID

The Intel i915 driver is already included in unRAID. To automatically load the driver during the startup of the host, the following lines must be added to /boot/config/go:

# Load the i915 driver.
modprobe i915

Nightly Builds

HandBrake nightly builds are based on the latest development code, which means they may or may not be stable.

The latest development version is available by using the dev-latest Docker image tag. For other specific development versions, look at available tags on Docker Hub.

When creating the container, the tag needs to be appended to the name of the Docker image, like this:

docker run [OPTIONS..] jlesage/handbrake:dev-latest

Debug Builds

Debug builds can be used to better investigate problems that can occur with HandBrake. These builds have HandBrake compiled in debug mode and all symbols are kept.

The main use case of debug builds is debugging a crash. To do this, a core dump needs to be generated when HandBrake crashes. To make sure this core dump is properly generated, two things are required:

  1. Core dumps must be enabled. This is done by setting the maximum size of cores via the --ulimit core=-1 parameter of the docker run command. A value of -1 mean "unlimited".

  2. Location of the cores must be set. This can be done by executing the following command on the host:

    echo 'CORE_PATTERN' | sudo tee /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern

    Where CORE_PATTERN is the template that defines the naming of core dump files. For example, to set the files in the configuration volume of the container (for easy retrieval from the host), use the pattern /config/core.%e.%t.

    NOTE: Because a core file contains the complete memory layout of an application, it is created with restrictive permissions. If another user other than the one used to run HandBrake needs to access the core file, permissions must be changed by executing chmod a+r CORE, where CORE is the path to the core file.

    NOTE: Since the core dump files pattern is shared between the host and the container, you may want to revert to the original pattern once done.

    NOTE: The current value of the pattern can be obtained by executing cat /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern.

Debug builds are available by using Docker image tags with the debug suffix. Make sure to look at available tags on Docker Hub.

When creating the container, the tag needs to be appended to the name of the Docker image, like this:

docker run [OPTIONS..] jlesage/handbrake:v1.14.3-debug

unRAID

On systems running unRAID, the --ulimit core=-1 parameter can be added to the Extra Parameters field of the container settings.

Support or Contact

Having troubles with the container or have questions? Please create a new issue.

For other great Dockerized applications, see https://jlesage.github.io/docker-apps.