Handbrake now comes with a turbo?

[Oneness]

I generally download the Handbrake nightly and use it for about a month before downloading a new version. So about a week ago I got a new nightly and wow is it faster. What happened?
I have a late 2009 MBP 2.83 ghz and I encode both SD DVD and Blu-Ray's as an MKV with an RF of 20 and DTS Passthrough. Before this new nightly I would see the following:
SD DVD - 24-26 FPS encode
Blu-Ray - 6-8 FPS encode
Now I am getting this:
SD DVD - 115-120 PFS encode
Blu-Ray - 22-25 PFS encode

That is a heck of a difference. The Handbrake version I got is '4080 svn'.
Was this just an optimization? Or a total rewrite (which I doubt). Whatever it was thank you Handbrake!!

 

[Lagmonster]

Do you know which day? Looking at the code changes and I cant seem to see what would have done that.

 

[HE15MAN]

Why do you download it so often?

 

[AdrianK]

Handbrake is just a GUI frontend for encoders, so any improvement in performance would be due to changes in the encoders themselves rather than Handbrake.

 

[amarcus]

I guess I'd be more inclined to say "just an optimisation". Handbrake recently upgraded one of the libraries it uses (ffmpeg) to enable multi-threaded decoding therefore making better use of your additional cores.

Adam

 

[tropic10]

https://trac.handbrake.fr/changeset/4035

 

[AdrianK]

• Changes "Normal" to use x264 --preset veryfast --profile main Nearly doubles it's speed for little loss of file size or quality.
• remove dummy average bitrate values from all built-in presets
• adds Large File Size to the High Profile preset

So only the presets have changed...?

 

[tropic10]

Amarcus mentioned the multi-threaded decoding but the preset change is probably the most likely cause for such a dramatic improvement with encoding speed.

 

[BlackMangoTree]

I am seeing zero speed improvements in the latest nightly build.

 

[Oneness]

Why do you download it so often?

I guess because they do make changes - and usually they are for the better.

I don't use any of the pre-sets in Handbrake so I am assuming that when I open Handbrake it just defaults to the 'Normal pre-set' and that is where I am seeing the increase in speed.
Maybe those who use the Apple pre-sets are not seeing the same increase.