HandBrake Web

HandBrake Web is a self-hosted platform that lets you run HandBrakeCLI on headless machines through a browser-based interface. It uses a server component to coordinate one or more workers, allowing multiple devices to process a shared encoding queue.

Key Features

• Web interface for managing HandBrakeCLI jobs on headless devices
• Central job queue with job creation and queue management
• Distributed encoding using multiple worker nodes concurrently
• Bulk job creation for videos within the same directory
• Preset management by uploading exported HandBrake preset JSON files
• Directory monitoring (“watchers”) to automatically create encoding jobs
• Hardware-accelerated encoding support for Intel Quick Sync (QSV) and NVIDIA NVENC

Use Cases

• Centralize video transcoding for a homelab or NAS using a browser UI
• Scale encoding throughput by distributing jobs across multiple machines
• Automate recurring transcoding workflows by watching inbound media folders

Limitations and Considerations

• Not affiliated with the official HandBrake project; relies on HandBrakeCLI
• Still under heavy development; some planned features (e.g., built-in preset creator, file uploads, user sessions) may be incomplete or missing

HandBrake Web fits well when you want a lightweight coordinator plus dedicated worker machines to handle CPU/GPU-intensive transcoding. It is especially useful for distributed queues and hands-off automation via directory watchers.