I recently switched to an AMD GPU and VA-API is the only option for hardware acceleration on linux that is viable. But Handbrake does not support it and it doesn’t seem like it will in the foreseeable future, so I am looking for an alternative. Ideally it is just an ffmpeg GUI, but I did not find any that are:

  • actually compatible with linux
  • updated in the last 5 years
  • have an option vor h264_vaapi or hevc_vaapi video codecs

Another workflow I thought about that is not working is transcoding the video, but copy all audio and subtitles and let handbrake handle that, however Handbrake has no option to just copy the video stream…

So far I have tried:

  • ffmpeg_batch: wouldn’t use my local version of ffmpeg, because of some path error, only works through wine
  • qwinff: got it building, but no VA-API codec, and no mkv output support (over 10 years old)
  • Shutter Encoder: only works through wine, font problems, no va-api support
  • Avidemux: takes forever to open a video clip, more of a video editor, no va-api support
  • Hybrid: know it from my windows days, clunky UI, no va-api support, but best candidate for me right now as I could use it to just copy video and handle audio and subtitles in here
  • StaxRip: the .7z file could not be extracted, I just got an error

Any ideas or suggestions?