Running two instances of handbrake possible?

[sadcaper]

I have two disc drives that I use for burning DVDs. My question is can I run two separate instances of HB simultaneously so I can be burning two DVDs at once? Currently I have to alternate drives when the other drive is finished.

If this is possible it should save some time encoding large libraries!

Thanks!

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Yes, you can run two instances of Handbrake, I just tried it for the first time by creating a duplicate via CMD+D in Finder and opening both and then opening two different sources, one in each instance.
I could even let them transcode (not "burn") at the same time.

 

[sadcaper]

Great thanks for the info!

Yes, my mistake on the wording!

 

[ansalmo]

Given that Handbrake usually maxes the CPU, running two instances will essentially make each run take twice as long and so give little real benefit.

You might be better to use an alternate ripping tool first (e.g. RipIt, FairMount, etc), and just queue the transcodes in a single instance of Handbrake. You can keep ripping discs one after the other while Handbrake's busy transcoding, and keep adding the newly-ripped files to the queue. You could potentially do two rips in parallel, either using different tools or with two instances of a single tool if it allows that.