VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. VLC media player requires Mac OS X 10.7.5 or later. It runs on any Mac with a 64-bit Intel processor or an Apple Silicon chip. Previous devices are supported by older releases. Note that the first generation of Intel-based Macs equipped with Core Solo or Core Duo processors is no longer supported. Available on Mac OS X, Windows and a variety of Linux/Unix platforms, VLC 2.0 includes enhancements such as a native full screen mode in Lion, a redesigned subtitle manager, support for multiple.
- VLC Media Player for Mac is a powerful and efficient app for playing all kinds of media in multiple formats right on your Mac. With this app in place, you can just download and watch what you want.
- Play every video and music file on your Mac. VLC is an open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
Last Updated on December 30, 2020 by Leo Standy
“This Blu-ray disc needs a library for aacs decoding, and your system does not have it.” You read this because you got a Blu-ray error when trying to play a Blu-ray disc with VLC Player on your computer. VLC is a good player software for Blu-ray content on Windows, macOS and even Linus, but it still can’t play Blu-ra disc that protected by aacs or BD+ nonetheless. Therefore, if you want to enable VLC to play those commercial Blu-ray discs, you must find the valid library for aacs decoding and put it into the right place, so that VLC can invoke it for decrypting Blu-ray content.
More Errors that you May Got when Playing Blu-ray with VLC
What is AACS? AACS is short for Advanced Access Content System which is a standard for DVD and Blu-ray content distribution and digital rights management. Accordingly, with the protection of AACS, all unauthorized access to the DVD and Blu-ray content will be banned. And that is the reason why you cannot play the Blu-ray disc on VLC. Luckily, many AACS decryption keys have been extracted and published on the internet, enabling decoding the AACS protected DVD or Blu-ray Media with third-party software such as VLC. So those extracted decryption keys are the library for aacs decoding that you need when playing Blu-ray disc with VLC.
Where to download AACS decoding library and how to install it to VLC
To fix “this Blu-ray disc needs a library for aacs decoding…” error, there are two files that you need to implement to your VLC.
- KEYDB.cfg file – this file is used by aacs decoding file.
- libaacs.dll – this is the aacs decoding file
Step 1 Go to vlc-bluray.whoknowsmy.name, you will receive the privacy error telling you that Your connection is not private. Click on the Advanced button to enlarge the error explanation tab and click Proceed to vlc-bluray.whoknowsmy.name (unsafe).
Step 2 Download keys database file and AACS dynamic library file onto your computer. You should download the right version of AACS dynamic library according to your system. Since I am in Windows 10 60bit, so I will download the VLC 64 bit on Windows version.
Step 3 Install the downloaded files.
For Windows:
- Put KEYDB.cfg in
C:Users[Your User Name]AppDataRoamingaacs. You can press Win + R to launch the Run application, and enter %appdata% into the Open text filed. Then click OK to open the directory of C:Users[Your User Name]AppDataRoaming, then Create a folder name “aacs” and copy the cfg into the folder. - Put libaacs.dll in your VLC installation directory.
For Mac:
- Put KEYDB.cfg in
~/Library/Preferences/aacs/(create it if it does not exist). - Put libaccs.dylib in
/usr/local/lib/directory (create it, if it does not exist).
Note: since vlc-bluray.whoknowsmy.name has been out of update for years, so please follow our instruction to install those files.
Step 4 Restart VLC and open the Blu-ray disc once again.
Now you probably have fixed the “This Blu-ray Disc needs a library for AACS decoding, and your system does not have it” error. Make sure that you have followed the fix guide carefully. If it doesn’t work. Please repeat the steps once again.
Download Vlc Player For Mac
If you still cannot play your Blu-ray movie with VLC. I will recommend you to use a third-party Blu-ray Player software to open the Blu-ray disc.
Best VLC alternative to play Blu-ray disc on Windows and macOS
If you don’t want to see the Blu-ray errors when playing Blu-ray contents with VLC or you just can’t fix the “This Blu-ray Disc needs a library for AACS decoding, and your system does not have it” error. Then a third-party Blu-ray Player software is your best choice.
- Embedded with all necessary decoding library for playing all DVD and Blu-ray disc, you don’t have to handle with the aacs decoding library missing problems.
- Play AACS and BD+ protected Blu-ray 1080p/720p HD videos.
How to Play AACS Protected Blu-ray Disc with Blu-ray Player instead of VLC
Step 1 Install the Blu-ray Player software mentioned above on your Windows or Mac.
Step 2 Launch the Player and click Open Disc on the middle menu of the interface.
Then you are free to enjoy your Blu-ray movie on your PC now.
Besides turn to a third-party player, you have another feasible solution which is to rip the Blu-ray disc to a digital video file then play the video with any ordinary player on your computer. To rip a Blu-ray disc, you need to appeal to Blu-ray Ripper.
When you need to play a video on your Mac, what do you do? Which app do you open? If you’re new to macOS, you might just double-click on the media file and it’s likely that QuickTime Player will start up — good enough for the most common tasks.
Soon though you’re bound to feel QuickTime’s limitations. It might be that you’ve transferred a file from your camera that’s not supported, or you want to watch a foreign movie with external subtitles. All this is difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish with QuickTime Player. You need to upgrade.
More top-notch media players for you
Download Vlc For Mac
Instead of having one VLC player alternative, get an entire collection. Setapp is a Mac apps subscription that gives you a large choice.
What Makes VLC Player For Mac Good
From the first moments of looking for a better media player, VLC for Mac is going to show up in search results again and again. The app is free, has good ratings, and seems to be universally loved. There’s even a version for your iPhone (and nearly every other operating system in existence). What’s not to like?
The official story of VLC player goes back to 1996, when a few students of École Centrale Paris in France developed the app as their academic project. Back then, they called it VideoLAN Client (VLC for short). As VLC player got more and more recognition and became popular worldwide, the original developers released the code under the open-source license, so that anyone could fix bugs and contribute new features.
By now, VLC player is available on Windows, macOS, iOS, Apple TV, Linux, Android, Chrome OS, and Xbox One. The only question left is how to find a VLC for Mac download.
How to get a VLC download for Mac
Unfortunately, due to some licensing issues, VLC player for Mac isn’t available on the App Store (although the iOS version is). With a simple Google search you’ll find that lots of third-party websites offer you VLC for Mac downloads — but beware! Such download files are often infected with various kinds of malware looking to find an easy way into your computer.
The only option that’s 100% safe is to find a VLC download for Mac on its official website:
Go to videolan.org/vlc
Click Download VLC
Double-click the .dmg file in your Downloads folder
Move the VLC icon into Applications
With regards to technical requirements, VLC player is supported by any 64-bit Intel-based Mac that runs macOS 10.7.5 or later (the latest one is 10.15). This covers 99% of Macs in use nowadays. And even if you need to make VLC player work with ancient Macs, older VLC versions are available for download from the official website as well.
To play a video on VLC for Mac:
Open VLC
Either drag the video you like onto the app’s window or go to File ➙ Open File… ➙ select the video ➙ Open
One of the most beloved VLC media player features is adding and fine-tuning external subtitles. When you’ve downloaded the .srt subtitle file you want to use:
In the menu bar of the VLC player, click Subtitles
Add Subtitle File… ➙ select the file ➙ Open
In the same Subtitles menu you can change the text size, thickness, color as well as the background color
With so much to offer, why would anyone choose any other app for their videos than VLC player? True, while QuickTime Player struggles with nearly every video encounter, VLC for Mac handles all the basics pretty well. But there’s so much more to discover in the land of video-playing features: multiple subtitles, audio extractions, ad-free web playback, AirPlay streaming, etc. Let’s see which VLC alternative for Mac offers it all.
Stream anything anytime with Elmedia Player
If VLC media player for Mac is a shell you can open content in, Elmedia Player is a full-on entertainment center. Get any videos you want anytime, thanks to its streaming functionality. The app is able to download YouTube directly to your Mac or play videos instantly using its web-browser extension, which allows to bypass all the ads.
Moreover, any downloaded videos can then be easily played on your AirPlay-enabled devices — watch a movie on a big screen with Apple TV, for example, without the need for USB drives or awkward cables. And while VLC media player might get stuck playing HD videos on a big screen, Elmedia will sail through them seamlessly with the help of hardware-accelerated decoding.
Play, stream, and download video
Get Elmedia Player, a perfect replacement for VLC, which has a streaming feature and a browser extension for direct downloads.
Elmedia Player, simply put, has everything you’ll ever need not to get bored. Even when videos become too much, you can extract audio files and save them as MP3 for easy on-the-go listening.
Gain full video control with Movist Pro
As good as Elmedia Player is, the ultimate VLC alternative for Mac could be a mighty 4K movie player called Movist Pro.
Movist Pro not only effortlessly decodes any video you come across (with an option to select decoders manually if needed) but also lets you configure the perfect video-watching scenario, including the quality and the size of each file.
If you want to watch a high-dynamic-range (HDR) video, but your screen doesn’t support it, the colors will show up dull and faded. Movist Pro features a built-in HDR tone-mapping technology that automatically adjusts colors to what they are supposed to be.
Free Vlc For Mac
While nearly every VLC alternative for Mac lacks powerful subtitle management that VLC is known for, Movist Pro takes it a step further with support for multiple subtitles at once — invaluable when you’re trying to learn a new language or watching a movie with a bunch of international friends.
Finally, using the Movist Pro Safari extension, you can watch any video right from your browser window, with any of the above personal settings already specified.
How to start with Movist Pro? One step only: simply drag and drop your video onto the app and enjoy.
The best VLC alternative for Mac
So while some might argue that VLC media player for Mac is still good, the truth is — lots has changed since 1996. New entrants like Elmedia Player with its built-in downloader and ad-free streaming, or Movist Pro with multiple-subtitle support and HDR improvement are winning the market. The one you choose should quite frankly depend on the features you’re going to use the most.
Best of all, you don’t need to go all in and buy Elmedia Player or Movist Pro to see how they work. Both apps are available to you on a free seven-day trial from Setapp — a platform with over 150 Mac apps, where each one is the best for a particular task, whether it’s budgeting, retouching, or just getting things done. What might you be watching tonight?
Vlc Video Mac
Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp.
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