The video transcoding software Handbrake has been able to use Intel’s QuickSync hardware H.264 encoding since sometime last year. It is one of the few applications to support this feature. The quality is debatable, especially on earlier chip generations, but the speed (hundreds of fps on SD video) and CPU usage (around 10% on Main profile) are impressive.

However, the exact configuration to enable Handbrake to use the QuickSync API (dubbed “Intel Media SDK”), and furthermore to have the QuickSync API activate the hardware encoding path, is not very clear-cut. The former requires a compatible version of the SDK, while the latter requires a compatible GPU driver. Intel has the fatuous policy of removing its older SDK’s and drivers, and possibly disabling certain features in later releases. Also, Intel doesn’t seem too interested in this consumer-facing feature to begin with. In light of that, I’m noting here one configuration that works for me, and archiving its relevant packages.

OS: Windows 7, 64-bit
GPU: Intel HD 3000
Driver: package version 15.28.18 (driver version 9.17.10.3223, 6/27/2013)
Intel Media SDK: “2013″ (version 1.6, Handbrake logs also show hardware version 1.4)
HandBrake: build 6443

Also a note about Intel Media SDK version numbers, they are as follows:
2012: API version 1.3
2012 R2: API version 1.4
2012 R3: API version 1.5
2013: API version 1.6
2013 R2: API version 1.7
2014: API version 1.8
2014 R2: API version 1.9
2015 (a “feature” of “INDE”): API version 1.10

I hate this nomenclature.