How to install Video Toolbox on macOS for use with HandBrake?

How do you install Video Toolbox on macOS running on an Apple M1 chip?

I would like to use it with HandBrake but I don’t understand how to do it.

There are none in the presets.

You don’t install Video Toolbox in macOS because it is already there. As explained in this official Apple doc:

“VideoToolbox is a low-level framework that provides direct access to hardware encoders and decoders. It provides services for video compression and decompression, and for conversion between raster image formats stored in CoreVideo pixel buffers. These services are provided in the form of session objects (compression, decompression, and pixel transfer), which are vended as Core Foundation (CF) types. Apps that don't need direct access to hardware encoders and decoders should not need to use VideoToolbox directly.”

Using Video Toolbox is an encoding option built into macOS.

But as you say, in Handbrake it is not obvious where or how to set it:

“There are none in the presets.”

Correct! None of the presets use Video Toolbox by default. So if you want to use it with HandBrake, just select a video to encode and then choose a preset and then go to the “Video” tab and select other H.264 VideoToolbox or H.265 VideoToolbox. See screenshot below

When you do that, Hanbrake will use VideoToolbox to encode the video.

Just be forewarned: Unless you are using a hardware specifically designed for video compression, the default quality of the output when using Video Toolbox in macOS is truly terrible. Try it out and see for yourself.

It might be useful in some cases, but for quality encoding of content it’s more of a novelty than anything else with default Apple hardware.