It is worth noting that you require an intel igpu (integrated GPU) or discrete GPU to use Intel Quicksync. You can check if your CPU is supported here: (https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000029338/graphics.html)

Adding Intel QuickSync Support

Some distros may not enable Intel QuickSync Video by default in their packages of HandBrakeCLI. This needs to be added manually, this means rebuilding HandBrake from source. You can check if your version already came with QSV support by running

HandBrakeCLI --help | grep -A12 "Select video encoder"

If QSV is enabled should give something similar to

   -e, --encoder <string>  Select video encoder:
                               x264
                               x264_10bit
                               qsv_h264
                               x265
                               x265_10bit
                               x265_12bit
                               qsv_h265
                               mpeg4
                               mpeg2
                               VP8
                               VP9
HandBrake has exited.

If you don't see qsv_h264 or qsv_h265 your version of HandBrakeCLI might not have have QSV enabled when it was built. This also could be that you don't have Intel Media SDK or Intel libvpl installed.

Depending on your CPU/GPU, the Intel Media SDK or Intel libvpl is required for QSV with HandBrake to work. You can check here: https://github.com/intel/libvpl?tab=readme-ov-file#dispatcher-behavior-when-targeting-intel-gpus

Intel Media SDK (older CPUs)

For older CPUs, you can either try to find the Intel Media SDK package from your distro or you can build it from source.

I have made a script that will Install all the requirements for Intel QSV with Intel Media SDK to get up and running.

You can either follow along the commands or you can run:

sudo apt install wget
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/automatic-ripping-machine/automatic-ripping-machine/main/scripts/installers/ubuntu-quicksync.sh 
sudo chmod +x ubuntu-quicksync.sh
sudo ./ubuntu-quicksync.sh

Remember to reboot to complete installation.

Intel libvpl (newer CPUs and discrete GPUs)

Note, that the requirements for qsv with newer Intel CPUs are different from qsv with discrete GPUs.

Unfortunately, support for those isn't completely figured out yet. You can follow the main issue (#909) or look for guides in issues or discussions. There are some working examples, but this still needs testing.

After Installation

Once you have verified everything installed correctly and the qsv_264 or qsv_265 show up when you run the HandBrakeCLI command above. You can set your profile in your arm.yaml config.

There are 2 supported profiles for Intel QSV they are H.265 QSV 1080p OR H.265 QSV 2160p 4K

You will also need to add the arm user to the video & render groups so that arm can access the QSV encoder

sudo usermod -a -G video arm 
sudo usermod -a -G render arm

HandBrake Official Documentation

For more detailed information you can read through the official HandBrake documentation HandBrake Building for linux

You can also use the flat-packs provided by HandBrake - More information from here Flatpacks