VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player that plays most multimedia file as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. Many people also use VLC to play blu-ray movies but how about the Blu-ray playback capability of VLC?
After read the instruction in videolan.org, we know that if we want to use VLC to play Blu-ray movies, we need to install an open-source library called libbluray, which is designed for Blu-Ray Discs playback for media players like VLC. However, most commercial Blu-Ray are protected by AACS or BD+ technologies and this library is not enough to playback those discs. So how to play encrypted Blu-ray with VLC?
Method 1: Install libaacs and libbdplus to Play Encrypted Blu-ray with VLC
Method 2: Remove Blu-ray Encryption for VLC Playback
Method 1: Install libaacs and libbdplus to Play Encrypted Blu-ray with VLC
To play Blu-ray with VLC, VideoLAN fellows have developed three projects to provide Blu-ray playback to open source players (VLC 2.x).
Blu-ray discs can be encrypted with AACS and BD+ protections. VideoLAN fellows have developed three projects to provide Blu-ray playback to open source players (VLC 2.x, MPlayer and MPlayer front ends like Starbuck's FreePlayer). These international research projects libbluray, libaacs and libbdplus help developers for interoperability of open source systems, particularly to bring encrypted Blu-ray disc playback capability :
- libbluray can parse Blu-ray content to access titles, audio and subtitles streams
- libaacs can decrypt Blu-ray disc content with known AACS keys
- libbdplus can decrypt Blu-ray disc content with libgcrypt
Therefore, to play encrypted Blu-ray with VLC, you need to install libaacs and libbdplus libraries. You can download VLC with libaacs/libbdplus libraries archive (.zip) and extract on your hard drive (for example to c:\vlc-bluray-2.2.4-win64) and create a shortcut on your desktop to the vlc.exe file (c:\vlc-bluray-2.1.5-win64\vlc.exe).
Download AACS (KEYDB.cfg) updater setup and run it to complete installation. From time to time, run AACS updater from desktop shortcut to update your AACS key local database (it may also upload VUK keys from your computer to the central database).
How to play encrypted Blu-ray discs on your computer with VLC?
- 1. get a version of you player with libbluray support enabled
- 2. copy libaacs and libbdplus libraries in your player executable folder
- 3. copy bdplus vm0 folder in your personal profile
- 4. copy aacs KEYDB.cfg file in your personal profile
- 5. maintain KEYDB.cfg file up-to-date
Method 2: Remove Blu-ray Encryption for VLC Playback
People who does not have a better backgroud can easily get confused and stucked when playing commercial Blu-ray movies on VLC with the projects listed above, fortunately, there are many simple but workable alternative way for you to get commercial Blu-ray disc easily played on VLC. The program we recommended here is Pavtube ByteCopy, which can decrypt any new released HD/4K Blu-ray discs, so that you can comprehensively remove all the protection including AACS, BD+ and region code from all released Blu-ray disc. The program can handle Blu-ray disc, BDMV folder and also ISO image files. You can convert the Blu-ray disc, Blu-ray ISO images and Blu-ray folder to VLC more compatible MKV, MP4, AVI and more video and audio formats. You can read the top reasons to choose ByteCopy to learn more about Pavtube ByteCopy.
How to Rip Blu-ray to VLC for Playback?
Step 1: Load Blu-ray disc into the program
Insert your Blu-ray disc into an external Blu-ray drive, then launch the Blu-ray to Media Player Classic ripper on your computer, click "File" > "Load from disc" to load Blu-ray disc into the program. The program also supports to load BDMV folder and Blu-ray ISO image file.
Step 2: Output Blu-ray to Multi-track MKV.
Pavtube ByteCopy offers many VLC supported video formats. But if you choose to rip Blu-ray to MKV, you can preserve the lossless picture and audio quality. Just click "Format" bar to get a complete MKV output from Blu-ray by following "Multi-track Video" > "Lossless/encoded Multi-track MKV(*.mkv)" with all the subtitle languages and audio tracks.
Tips: Click "Settings" to open "Multi-task Settings" window, you can uncheck and remove unwanted subtitle languages and audio tracks in this window.
Step 3: Start Blu-ray to MKV conversion process.
Go back to the main interface, press right-bottom "Convert" button to start Blu-ray movie to Multi-track MKV format ripping process.
When the conversion is completed, click "Open Output Folder" on the main interface to pop out the folder with converted files. You can then enjoy Blu-ray movies on VLC with your unwanted subtitle languages and audio tracks without worrying about the Blu-ray encryption. But Pavtube Video Converter Ultimate only works on Windows. If you are using a Mac, you can follow this guide to play Blu-ray with VLC on Mac: How to Play Encrypted Blu-ray with VLC on Mac?
