HandBreak - RaspberryPi

building HandBreak on raspberry pi including x265 codec

Does it make sense to build handbreak on raspberry pi? Be warned it wont be fast. Many times slower that Intel CPU laptop. But it works so why not.

I have managed sucessfully to compile it on RPi 2B+, 3, 3B+ and 4 running raspbian based on Debian 9 and 10.

So let's DYI

1. install all dependencies

sudo apt-get install autoconf automake build-essential cmake git libass-dev libbz2-dev libfontconfig1-dev libfreetype6-dev libfribidi-dev libharfbuzz-dev libjansson-dev liblzma-dev libmp3lame-dev libnuma-dev libogg-dev libopus-dev libsamplerate-dev libspeex-dev libtheora-dev libtool libtool-bin libvorbis-dev libx264-dev libxml2-dev libvpx-dev m4 make ninja-build patch pkg-config python tar zlib1g-dev patch libvpx-dev xz-utils bzip2 zlib1g libturbojpeg0-dev appstream

If you want GUI version add:

Debian 9:

sudo apt-get install intltool libappindicator-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev libglib2.0-dev libgstreamer1.0-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev libgtk-3-dev libgudev-1.0-dev libnotify-dev libwebkitgtk-3.0-dev

Debian 10:

sudo apt-get install intltool libappindicator-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev libglib2.0-dev libgstreamer1.0-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev libgtk-3-dev libgudev-1.0-dev libnotify-dev libwebkit2gtk-4.0-dev

2. install nasm and meson

Debian 9 nasm and meson are too old so we need newer ones:

sudo curl -L 'http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/n/nasm/nasm_2.14-1_armhf.deb' -o /var/cache/apt/archives/nasm_2.14-1_armhf.deb && sudo dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/nasm_2.14-1_armhf.deb

sudo add-apt-repository -s 'deb http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch-backports main' \
&& \
sudo apt-get update \
&& \
sudo apt-get -t stretch-backports install meson

If Debian 10 then things are easier:

sudo apt-get install meson nasm

3. get HandBreak source code

git clone -b 1.4.2 https://github.com/HandBrake/HandBrake.git && cd HandBrake

to get 1.4.2 version

4. we have to add extra configure parameters to X265 module

Without it compilation will fail on RPi

echo "X265_8.CONFIGURE.extra +=  -DENABLE_ASSEMBLY=OFF -DENABLE_PIC=ON -DENABLE_AGGRESSIVE_CHECKS=ON -DENABLE_TESTS=ON -DCMAKE_SKIP_RPATH=ON" >> ./contrib/x265_8bit/module.defs \
&& \
echo "X265_10.CONFIGURE.extra +=  -DENABLE_ASSEMBLY=OFF -DENABLE_PIC=ON -DENABLE_AGGRESSIVE_CHECKS=ON -DENABLE_TESTS=ON -DCMAKE_SKIP_RPATH=ON" >>  ./contrib/x265_10bit/module.defs \
&& \
echo "X265_12.CONFIGURE.extra +=  -DENABLE_ASSEMBLY=OFF -DENABLE_PIC=ON -DENABLE_AGGRESSIVE_CHECKS=ON -DENABLE_TESTS=ON -DCMAKE_SKIP_RPATH=ON" >>  ./contrib/x265_12bit/module.defs \
&& \
echo "X265.CONFIGURE.extra  +=  -DENABLE_ASSEMBLY=OFF -DENABLE_PIC=ON -DENABLE_AGGRESSIVE_CHECKS=ON -DENABLE_TESTS=ON -DCMAKE_SKIP_RPATH=ON" >>  ./contrib/x265/module.defs

5. now we can configure our project

For CLI only:

./configure --launch-jobs=$(nproc) --disable-gtk --disable-nvenc --disable-qsv --enable-fdk-aac

For CLI and GUI:

./configure --launch-jobs=$(nproc) --disable-nvenc --disable-qsv --enable-fdk-aac

6. we have to make quick-and-dirty hack to x265 source code

We compile with DENABLE_ASSEMBLY=OFF but x265 code does not take into account that it is not handled correctly for ARMv7 (I have reported it to X265 guys so maybe in the future it wont be required if they modify their code)

but first we have to start building it so it is downloaded

cd build

make x265

Wait unitl you see that files have been downloaded and patched. It is the first thing happening. Then stop the rest by pressing CTRL-C.

Now we can make it raspberry pi compatible:

nano ./contrib/x265/x265_3.5/source/common/primitives.cpp

note that x265_3.5 folder can be different as x265 software is active project and its version can change. Modify it accordingly.

change the following precompiler directive - at the end of the file:

#if X265_ARCH_ARM == 0
void PFX(cpu_neon_test)(void) {}
int PFX(cpu_fast_neon_mrc_test)(void) { return 0; }
#endif // X265_ARCH_ARM

to

#if X265_ARCH_ARM != 0
void PFX(cpu_neon_test)(void) {}
int PFX(cpu_fast_neon_mrc_test)(void) { return 0; }
#endif // X265_ARCH_ARM

we just change == condition in the first line to !=

7. let's build

make clean

if you see some errors after make clean you can safely ignore them. This step is only needed to clean x265 interrupted build.

now we can start full Handbreak build

make -j $(nproc)

you can take a break - it takes some time. Approximately 25 min on RPi 4. And much longer on older RPi models.

8. when finished we should have excecutable binaries ready

• CLI: build/HandBrakeCLI
• GUI: build/gtk/src/ghb

9. we can use it straight away or install properly

sudo make --directory=. install

10. basic CLI usage

HandBrakeCLI -i PATH-OF-SOURCE-FILE -o NAME-OF-OUTPUT-FILE --"preset-name"

to see available profiles:

HandBrakeCLI --preset-list

example:

./HandBrakeCLI -i /media/Films/test.avi -o /media/Films/test.mkv --preset="H.264 MKV 720p30"

Sources:

https://handbrake.fr/docs/en/1.3.0/developer/install-dependencies-debian.html

https://handbrake.fr/docs/en/1.3.0/developer/build-linux.html

https://mattgadient.com/2016/06/20/handbrake-0-10-5-nightly-and-arm-armv7-short-benchmark-and-how-to/

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/13092/scrape-videos-and-reencode-them-directly-on-the-raspberry-pi-with-sselph-s-scraper

https://www.linux.com/learn/how-convert-videos-linux-using-command-line

https://handbrake.fr/docs/en/1.3.0/cli/cli-options.html

GUI compilation - https://github.com/rafaelmaeuer/handbrake-raspberry-pi