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- 1VideoLAN
- 2VLC Media Player
- 3Support And Feature Requests
What is VideoLAN? What is the VideoLAN Team?
VideoLAN is a non-profit organization, that produces and distributes free and open source software for video and multimedia purpose, released under Open Source licenses.
Fortunately, VLC doesn’t come with any of those; it’s entirely ad-free and contains no malicious software. Where can you run this program? It’s available for the latest versions of Windows, Mac OS, Android, IOS and Linux. Is there a better alternative? No, VLC is a compelling media player. Free Blu-ray Player: VLC Media Player (Windows and Mac) VLC Media Player is another popular free Blu-ray player you can choose. As a professional media playing software, it allows you to play Blu-ray disc/folder and ISO file on Windows computer with easy. The latest version of VLC media player is 3.0 on Mac Informer. It is a perfect match for Players in the Audio & Video category. The app is developed by VideoLan and its user rating is 4.4 out of 5.
Region X used to work fine for me but now with the new RPC-1 check it just states I don't have a region free drive and Quit is the only option. I have 3 DVD drives, 2 internal and 1 external. One of the internal drives is region free, the other 2 drives aren't. Back to the previous version for me. VLC media player begins to playback your multi region DVD on Mac. Solution 3 Change DVD Region on Mac - A Region Free Drive For hard-core region switchers, the ultimate solution goes to a region free drive for your Mac computer.
It started as a student project at the French École Centrale Paris but is now a worldwide project with developers from everywhere and dozens of millions of people using VideoLAN's software.
What is the legal structure of VideoLAN?
VideoLAN is a French non-profit organization.
VideoLAN has its own bank account and is fully responsible of this website.
What are the differences between VLC, VLC media player, VideoLAN Client, VideoLAN Server and VideoLAN?
VLC is the official name of VideoLAN's main product, often named VLC. VideoLAN Client is an ancient name of this product.
VideoLAN Server is another product of VideoLAN, but is discontinued since a long time.
VideoLAN is not a software, see 1.1 of this FAQ.
How can I contribute to VideoLAN?
You might either contribute time, material, or money. You don't need to be a programmer to help us. We are also always needing some translators and designers.
You will find all information you need on the contribution page.
Why are your mailing-lists and your website in english?
VideoLAN's developers come from all around the world and english is the only language they can use to communicate together. Although great care is given to the translation of VLC in various languages, maintaining translations of our website costs too much more time than we can afford.
What should I do if I can't find an answer to my question here?
Read the other section of the Support center
Does VLC support DVDs from all regions?
This mostly depends on your DVD drive.
Testing it is usually the quickest way to find out. The problem is that a lot of newer drives are RPC2 drives these days. Some of these drives don't allow raw access to the drive untill the drive firmware has done a regioncheck. VLC uses libdvdcss and it needs raw access to the DVD drive to crack the encryption key. So with those drives it is impossible to circumvent the region protection. (This goes for all software. You will need to flash your drives firmware, but sometimes there is no alternate firmware available for your drive). On other RPC2 drives that do allow raw access, it might take VLC a long time to crack the key. So just pop the disc in your drive and try it out, while you get a coffee. RPC1 drives should 'always' work regardless of the regioncode.
Where does VLC store its config file?
Currently, a config file is created on a per user basis (there is no global configuration file). If you modify the available options in VLC and save the new configuration, then a configuration file will be created in your user directory. The precise location of this file depends on the Operating System you are running:
- Linux/Unix:
$(HOME)/.config/vlc/vlcrc(v0.9.0 and above)$(HOME)/.vlc/vlcrc(v0.8 and older)
- macOS:
HOME/Library/Preferences/org.videolan.vlcHOME/Library/Preferences/VLC(v0.9 and older)
- Windows:
- 95/98/ME:
C:WindowsApplication Datavlcvlcrc - 2000/XP:
C:Documents and Settings%username%Application Datavlcvlcrc - Vista/7:
C:Users%username%Application Datavlcvlcrc
- 95/98/ME:
- BeOS:
config/settings/vlcrc
VLC has a strange behavior...
Please consider the Reset preferences section in our Wiki for a variety of possible solutions.
Videos are too dark
Often this is caused by video hardware overlay problems:
- If it is only one video then use the “Settings” menu, option “Extended GUI” and try to increase the Gamma value in the “Video” tab.
- Check your video card settings and turn off hardware video overlay. If the videos now play with proper lighting, then deinstalling and reinstalling the video drivers might help.
I cannot read DVDs!
Here are a few things to check:
- If you are on Linux/Unix, did you install the
libdvdcsspackage? - Do you have write access to your DVD device? For instance, from the console: where
/dev/dvdis the device corresponding to your DVD drive.
Video is choppy
Your system might be too slow to decode all pictures. It might be that your CPU basically is not fast enough. It can also be that the subsystem is misconfigured/misdriven, this happens for example under Redhat Linux. Here are some elements to improve speed:
- Turn on DMA on your DVD device, for instance:
- Under Linux:
- Under Windows, go to the System section of the control panel, and go to the Hardware manager (it is sometimes in a separate tab, and sometimes, you have to go to the Advanced tab. Then, righ-click on your DVD player, and check the DMA checkbox.
- Upgrade to the latest driver for your video board.
If you are running Linux, you can additionnaly upgrade to the latest X.Org version. If supported, check that the xvideo plug-in is effectively used with: - Stop other running applications...
- Try disabling framedropping. Framedropping allows VLC not to decode some pictures when the CPU is overloaded, but can result in choppier playback under certain conditions.
Framedropping behaviour can be configured in the Video preferences of VLC.
Audio and video are out of sync
Try using another audio output plugin and, under Unix, kill esd, artsd or pulseaudio if they are running. If the problem is due to the input file, have a look at the 'Audio desynchronisation compensation' option.
Audio desynchronisation compensation is limited by the cache size depending to the selected access module. This can be altered in the configuration panel.
Please, for the clueless people arguing that it doesn't work, include the information mentioned in the second post of this thread in The VideoLAN Forums exhaustingly, as by my nearly ever-lasting research on the same issue there are a lot of locations here and there where it isn't being mentioned unfortunately. Best if it was mentioned in the tooltip as well. Please do put this tag into the appropiate location or remove it once it is a documented feature inside the software, agreed?VLC crashes
Increase the verbosity level (either in the preferences or with a -vv command line option) and look at the debug messages (in the terminal or in the Messages window).
If you are convinced that it is a bug in VLC, have a look at the bug reporting page.
How can I take screenshots?
To take a snapshot of the video displayed by VLC, you just need to press the pre-defined snapshot hotkey:
- Windows/Linux/Unix: Ctrl + Alt + S
- Mac OS X: Command + Alt + S
To change it, go to Preferences → Interface → Hotkeys settings, check Advanced options, and set Take video snapshot.
You can also take a snaphot via the menu Video → Snapshot.
To change the snapshot format or directory, go to Preferences → Video.
Where are my screenshots?
If you haven't changed the snapshot directory in your preferences, your screenshots should go to:
- Windows:
My DocumentsMy Pictures - Linux/Unix:
$(HOME)/.vlc/ - macOS:
Pictures
To change it, go to Preferences → Video → Video snapshot directory.
My file doesn't seem to work!
Are you sure VLC supports the file? Try checking the features page. If it supported and you compiled VLC yourself, check if you have downloaded and installed all the codecs correctly. If it is not supported, then you are out of luck for now.
Download Vlc Media Player For Mac
VLC doesn't display all subtitles
If VLC has autodetected your subtitles file, or if you opened it manually, but VLC only diplays some subtitles from time to time, you will need to change the subtitles file encoding.
Vlc Player Download
Go to Preferences → Input / Codecs → Other codecs → Subtitles, and set Subtitle text encoding to the right one.
See this reference: ISO Standard for various characters sets.
Go to Preferences → Video → Output modules, and set Video output module to something different, like DirectX video output. Be sure you have advanced options enabled to be able to access this option.
Also, you might need to disable the 'YUV -> RGB' checkbox in DirectX section of Preferences → Video → Output modules.
Why am I permanently banned from the forum?
Probably your IP address was banned, but it is not necessarily your fault.
- If you are at home, your dynamic IP was probably previously abused by a spammer.
- If you are at work/school, other users on your network may have caused the blacklisting.
Will VLC be available on Windows Phone?
We're currently working on it. Since development for Windows Phone is harder in comparison to other mobile platforms, we can't estimate the time needed to release a version for Windows Phone. The latest updates can be received by following us on twitter or subscribing to our RSS feed.
When will VLC be able to stream to Chromecast?
We're currently working on it but can't give a release date.
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.
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.