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Play Blu-ray Movies on PC / Mac / Android & iOS with VLC Media Player

play-blu-ray-with-vlc

Blu-Ray discs are fragile and susceptible to scratches, nicks, and getting lost. So you want an easy way to make a backup of the movies from your Blu-ray disc into your PC or Mac's hard drive, so that you can play them with the open sources VLC media player? This article will show you the easy method to rip or backup of the Blu-ray movie for watching on VLC on your PC, Mac and Android & iOS devices.

VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework (can run on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Android, iOS, etc.) that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. In fact, VLC 2.0 or later version supports the Blu-ray playback. However, for legal reasons, AACS and BD+ DRM libraries and keys still are not shipped. That means only Blu-ray disc with AACS libraries exposed are supported.

Note: DVD drive or Blu-ray drive is required if you want to play DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs and even the Blu-ray disc with VLC media player on your PC or Mac directly.

How to play Blu-ray movies with VLC

For play Blu-ray with VLC for free, you need two files: keys database and AACS dynamic library.

Keys database: get the file

  • Windows: put it in C:\ProgramData\aacs\
  • Mac OS X: put it in ~/Library/Preferences/aacs/ (create it if it does not exist)

AACS dynamic library:

  • VLC 32 bit on Windows: put that file in your VLC directory
  • VLC 64 bit on Windows: put that file in your VLC directory
  • Mac OS X: put that file in ~/lib directory (create it, if it does not exist)

Tip: VLC does not yet support Blu-ray menus so you must manually select title to play.

When the keys database and AACS dynamic library are installed correctly, you can launch VLC media player and click on Media -> Open Disc (Ctrl + D) to load the Blu-ray movie from disc.

Additonal: If you want to play the Blu-ray movies on your PC or Mac via VLC media player without Blu-ray drive, or watch Blu-ray movie without Blu-ray player, please follow the guide below to rip the Blu-ray to digital (H.264 MP4) files.

Play Blu-ray movies on Android / iOS devices

Watching Blu-ray movies on your Andriod or iOS device with VLC is a nice chooice, however, the Andriod or iOS device has not shipped with a Blu-ray drive, in this case, you need to rip the Blu-ray movie from disc to the Andriod or iOS device compatible format, such as H.264 MP4 - which is widely used for all kinds of devices. Meanwhile, rip the Blu-ray to H.264 MP4 files, you can store them into your NAS and play them on your Andriod or iOS device via wireless.

In order to rip Blu-ray for playing on Android / iOS device with VLC media player, you need a Blu-ray ripping tool, here Brorsoft Blu-ray Ripper recommended. Key features listed:

Hack Blu-ray encrypted ability.

It has abilityh to backup any encrypted Blu-ray including older and recent ones and remove copy protection from Blu-ray with Disney X-project DRM, Analog Protection, CSS, Sony ArccOS, CSS, UOPs and unlock region code.

Output Formats and Devices.

Rip and Convert Blu-ray to H.264MP4MKVAVI, etc.

Rip/Transfer Blu-ray to Android,  iPad ProiPhone 7/7 Plus, Playback with PS4/PS3.

Store Blu-ray Digitally on Synology NAS Drive for Streaming, to Dropbox for Viewing Anywhere.

Import Blu-ray footage to FCP XiMovie, etc for further editing.

Easy to use. 

If one software is with quality features, it may be complicated to control. There are just three main steps for Brorsoft Blu-ray Ripper to charge the whole ripping process: Load Blu-ray > Set Profile > Get Started.

Totally safe. 

No one would like to take any risks to run an unsafe software. Brorsoft Blu-ray Ripper is totally clean. No virus, no adware, no spyware, and no malware.

Speed and quality. 

Brorsoft Blu-ray Ripper makes a balance among faster ripping conversion speed, amazing output video audio quality and smaller file size, it catches my heart in its hands.

==> Guide: Rip Blu-ray for playing with VLC media player

Install and launch the Blu-ray Ripper(Windows version taken as example, Mac version share the same steps).

download_windows.gif download_mac.gif 

If you are Mac user, please turn to Brorsoft Blu-ray Ripper for Mac, witch compatible with macOS Sierra well. For ripping Blu-ray on Mac and macOS Sierria, click here.

Step 1. Load Blu-ray

Before loading Blu-ray content, a BD drive is needed and pls keep networked.

Insert the Blu-ray disc to the external Blu-ray drive as the source file.

Click the disc button to load the entire Blu-ray disc for ripping. Blu-ray folder, DVD disc, DVD folder are supported as well.

backup-dvd.gif

Tip: If you need to rip Blu-ray with wanted subtitles and audio track, you can click the drop down menu after "Subtitles" and "Audio" to select your desired tracks.

choose-subtitles-for-note8.gif

Step 2. Select Output Format

Press on "Format". Here, you can see many profiles, like "Common Video", "HD Video", "3D Video" and some preset for popular devices.

Here we choose H.264 .mp4 as output format for its wide compatibility feature. Basically the "Common Video -> H.264 Video (*.mp4)" is just all right.

If you want to keep 1080p resolution as source movie, you can choose from "HD Video" category.

new-mp4-format.gif

Tip: If you think the video size this not suitable for your devices, you can first choose any one of the provided type, then change the settings. Please remember the file size is based more on bitrate than resolution which means bitrate higher results in bigger file size, and lower visible quality loss.

Step 3. Start Blu-ray ripping

Hit the “Start Conversion” button in bottom right corner to start ripping Blu-ray disc.

You can view the conversion progress and are able to cancel the converting process at anytime.

When the conversion is over, click "open" to locate the ripped Blu-ray movies and then take them as you like for personal use.

BTW: You can also entire copy the Blu-ray original structure or main movie only without any protections, and play with VLC.

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 Brorsoft Video Converter Ultimate /  Brorsoft iMedia Converter for Mac

> All-in-one Video Converter, DVD Ripper, Blu-ray Ripper, DVD/Blu-ray Copy software and Video Editor.

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