As everyone knows, libdvdcss is an important tool that helps access protected DVDs. It's widely used by DVD players and rippers such as Handbrake. On Windows, you can download libdvdcss from VideoLAN, install it, and the DVD programs can use immediately. But it's a little bit tricky to download and install libdvdcss on Mac due to the SIP. In this post, we will show you how to download Libdvdcss on Mac Ventura, High Sierra, El Capitan, and earlier to rip protected DVDs easily.
Libdvdcss is part of the VideoLAN project and is used by VLC media player and other DVD software. It's just like a key to the door to help DVD programs access and unscramble DVDs encrypted with CSS without any further ado. So it's a crucial library for some free DVD ripper software that doesn't have DVD decryption ability like Handbrake. That's why if you want to rip CSS-protected DVD or remove DVD region code using Handbrake on Mac, you need to download and install libdvdcss on Mac first.
Libdvdcss Pkg Download For Mac
You need to know that the simplest way to get libdvdcss on Mac for Handbrake is to install VLC 0.9.x and later. The VLC player will include libdvdcss for Handbrake. However, in some cases, macOS may prevent Handbrake from loading VLC's libdvdcss. Therefore, you will need to download Handbrake libdvdcss on Mac Ventura, Monterey, High Sierra, El Capitan, etc. manually.
For Mac running on macOS later than 10.10 El Captain, users can use Homebrew to simplify the process of installing command line software like cask, htop, etc. and open-source packages including libdvdcss on a Mac. Before you start to download libdvdcss on Mac for Handbrake, you will need to install Homebrew with a few Terminal commands.
Note: If you still get errors like "Copy-Protected sources are not supported." with Handbrake or other programs after you download the libdvdcss via Homebrew, check the location where the libdvdcss is stored on your Mac. Homebrew may install libdvdcss.2.dylib in /opt/homebrew/cellar/libdvdcss/1.4.3/lib. You need to copy it to /usr/local/lib.
For those who don't want to use Homebrew, there is a method to manually download libdvdcss on Mac. Here are the steps to manually download and install libdvdcss on Mac Ventura, Monterey, High Sierra, El Capitan, etc.
Step 1: Open the link and there are all the libdvdcss versions. The latest libdvdcss for Mac is libdvdcss 1.4.2. Select 1.4.2 from the list, then choose macosx. Click on the libdvdcss-1.4.2.pkg to download the libdvdcss for macOS.
Step 2: Once the libdvdcss-1.4.2.pkg is downloaded on your Mac, double-click on the pkg file and install the installer as per the prompts. The only thing to note is, the location of the libdvdcss on Mac is now placed in the folder /usr/local/lib than /usr/lib.
Note: The above method to download libdvdcss on Mac may not work on Ventura and newer macOS as there is a security feature called System Integrity Protection. It may prevent you from installing libdvdcss on Mac directly. If you're not allowed to install libdvdcss on Mac manually, then you need the help of Homebrew.
Option 2: You can also use the Terminal to download the libdvdcss on Mac. Open a Terminal and enter the following command line. You will need to enter a password for an account with administrative privileges when you run the command line for the first time.
If any error occurs, run the command: sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/lib. Once the libdvdcss is installed on Mac, completely restart Handbrake and it will automatically use the libdvdcss to rip a copy-protected DVD.
macgui: dlopen error: dlopen(/usr/local/lib/libdvdcss.2.dylib, 0x0001): tried: '/usr/local/lib/libdvdcss.2.dylib' (mach-o file, but is an incompatible architecture (have 'x86_64', need 'arm64e')), '/usr/lib/libdvdcss.2.dylib' (no such file)
You should note that an M1 Mac requires the Arm architecture-compatible version of libdvdcss. So you can't download the libdvdcss directly from VideoLan. But you can download libdvdcss on Mac via homebrew. Also try to compile libs from source like this:
1. Download official libdvdcss on your Mac from VideoLan website at 2. tar -xjf ./libdvdcss-1.4.2.tar.bz2 3. cd libdvdcss-1.4.2 4. ./configure --prefix=/usr/local 5. make 6. sudo make install
Reason 2: The Gatekeeper may block the .dylib files and therefore, Handbrake can't use the libdvdcss on Mac. Then you need to manually check and open the .dylib files for Handbrake.
Reason 4: If you have installed VLC on your Mac, the libdvdcss included in VLC may go conflict with the libdvdcss you've just downloaded on your Mac. If you are downloading libdvdcss on Mac for Handbrake, you can update your VLC to the latest version and check out if it works. If not, uninstall VLC and download libdvdcss on your Mac.
To install libdvdcss on Mac Ventura, Monterey, Catalina, High Sierra, El Capitan, etc. may be troublesome for non-tech savvy users. Besides, Handbrake with libdvdcss only can rip CSS-protected DVDs and remove DVD region codes. In fact, there are self-contained DVD rippers that can rip any protected DVDs on Mac without using libdvdcss.
Free download this protected DVD ripper on Mac and fire it up. Click the "DVD Disc" or "DVD Path" button to load the DVD on your MacBook, iMac 4K/5K Retina, etc. Unlike Handbrake, this DVD ripper for Mac will take a few seconds and automatically choose the right title without downloading libdvdcss on Mac.
Yes. VLC for Windows and Mac has the libdvdcss library included to help it gain raw access to the DVD drive to crack the encryption key. Therefore, if you have VLC installed already, you don't need to download and install libdvdcss library for your Mac anymore.
The libdvdcss library is available on the official site of VideoLAN. To download libdvdcss on Mac Monterey, Catalina, High Sierra, El Capitan, etc., go to the site of VideoLAN. Click on libdvdcss listed on the right lower part of the screen under the tab FOR DEVELOPERS. Then find the line "libdvdcss is available through Git or by browsing the releases." and click on releases. Click on the versions of libdvdcss until you find a version for macox. The latest libdvdcss for Mac is 1.4.2.
There's never a straight answer about whether or not it is legal to use libdvdcss. In the case of libdvdcss+VLC or other players, it's usually legal as it won't violate any copyrights. If you use libdvdcss to break and rip a protected DVD, it's regarded as illegal under DMCA. That being said, libdvdcss hasn't been brought up in a court case then it must be okay to use.
Q - "Handbrake problems help! I can't use handbrake to rip DVDs on my new laptop. When I got it all set up and ripped a DVD, the pictures and sound were all scrambled. Should I download and install the libdvdcss.dll? How can I do this? I'm a Windows 10 PC user."
Libdvdcss has been removed from HandBrake since V0.9.2, and now you can only find libDVDNav in HandBrake under Tools > Preferences > Advanced > DVD Reading. But without libdvdcss, HandBrake cannot rip DVDs encrypted with CSS. To handle the protections, you need to manually download libdvdcss for Handbrake. Here are the steps[with pictures] to install libdvdcss for Handbrake on Windows/Mac to rip protected DVDs.
Downloading and installing libdvdcss.pkg/libdvdcss.dll for Handbrake can only rip DVDs with region codes and CSS. Handbrake with libdvdcss won't work with DVDs encrypted by Disney X-project DRM, RCE, Sony ArccOS, and other advanced schemes.
But you can remove all DVD encryptions with WinX DVD Ripper Platinum - the most powerful Handbrake alternative for Windows and Mac. It rips protected DVDs alone without using libdvdcss or additional tools. It supports CSS encryption, region code, Sony ARccOS, UOPs, APS, RCE, etc. and it gets updated continuously with new protection measures. Easily rip any protected DVD to MP4, H.264, AVI, WMV, MOV, etc.
To sum up, libdvdcss (or libdvdcss2 in some repositories) is a part of the VideoLAN project, which alone is only a free and open-source software library that can find and guess keys to do the DVD decryption, so that CSS-protected DVDs will be played correctly. Together with media player software and free DVD rippers, such as VLC and HandBrake, libdvdcss helps them read and decrypt DVDs of different regions or encrypted with CSS. And because it uses a generated list of possible player keys, libdvdcss has never been legally challenged.
Step 2: You don't have to rename libdvdcss-2.dll as libdvdcss.dll. Just cut and paste the downloaded libdvdcss 2 file into your HandBrake program folder. If you didn't manually set the installation path before, it normally is "C:\Program Files\HandBrake".
Step 3: There is one more step for installing libdvdcss on Mac El Capitan and later macOS as its SIP (System Integrity Protection) will remove libdvdcss by default. To download libdvdcss on Mac later than El Capitan successfully, here are two workarounds:
Option 1: disable SIP. To disable SIP for libdvdcss Handbrake download on Mac, you need to: restart your Mac and simultaneously press down the Command - R keys until you see the Apple logo. Select Utilities > Terminal. Run the command "csrutil disable" in the Terminal and press Return. Exit Terminal and click the Apple menu > Restart to reboot your Mac. Then you should be able to install libdvdcss for Handbrake on Mac without problems.
1. Open a Finder window -> type "cmd+shift+G" or click "Go" and choose "Go to Folder" -> copy and paste /Library/SystemMigration/History/ -> press button "GO" -> open the folder "Migration-[random letters and numbers]" and find "QuarantineRoot" -> libdvdcss file should be in this folder.
Libdvdcss is mainly used in free DVD rippers like HandBrake to rip DVDs encrypted with CSS. But libdvdcss can't help crack all CSS keys, let alone many other advanced DVD copy protections besides CSS, such as Region Code, AACS 2.0, Sony ArccOS, UOPs, and Disney X-project DRM. If you are trying to rip Disney DVDs with HandBrake libdvdcss, there might be a "HandBrake won't rip" problem, due to its up to 98 fake titles. 2ff7e9595c
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