Finally: A free solution to play 4k/UHD Blue-Ray on an Apple Mac (also on M1, Ventura)

[ROBERTV]

I spent like 3 hours to figure out how to play a 4k/UHD Blue-Ray movie on an Apple Mac M1 laptop. Importing MKV files does work fine, but playing a movie directly from the disc?

To be honest: All players that I tried had their issues, and most of them asked for 50-100 USD for a simple playback option. I cannot recommend any of them: DVD-Fab, Leawo, AnyMP4, Videobyte, Aieesoft, Macbluerayplayer. In most cases they would not work on 4k/UHD or they would nag with some ads etc.

So I wanted to try my two standards video player software, VLC and IINA - both completely free.

I spent like 2 hours to get VLC and MakeMKV working together, by reading some information here on the forum. But without finding an easy and working solution. Why? Some links seemed to be outdated. And MakeMKV integration for VLC/Handbrake and other apps does not seem to work on macOS Ventura.

But a combination of some good posts here on the forum and some Google results created a functional solution:

(1)

First I set some links from the user "lib" folder to the new MakeMKV background decoding library:

Code: Select all

cd ~
mkdir -p ~/lib
ln -s /Applications/MakeMKV.app/Contents/lib/libmmbd_new.dylib ~/lib/libmmbd.dylib
ln -s /Applications/MakeMKV.app/Contents/lib/libmmbd_new.dylib ~/lib/libaacs.dylib
ln -s /Applications/MakeMKV.app/Contents/lib/libmmbd_new.dylib ~/lib/libbdplus.dylib

But it seems that some Apple sandboxing & security options on Apple macOS Ventura interfere with this solution.

(2)

So I added this one link to the general "lib" folder:

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ln -s /Applications/MakeMKV.app/Contents/lib/libmmbd_new.dylib /usr/local/lib/libaacs.dylib

And "Voila!" - VLC will try to use the aacs lib and start a MakeMKV background process that will decode the Blue-Ray Disc on the fly.

This worked also for IINA. So I suppose there are more (free) players that will work. Happy to get other alternatives recommended below this post.

Someone please test this..

Robert


NB: Thanks to this post for pointing me into thew right direction: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=16112

[GCustom]

not working for me, still getting needs library for aacs, the second command says file already exists I'm assuming from the 2nd command of the three in the first block

[Collyde]

Not working for me either.
What do you select for UltraHD folders on the disk?

I ended up linking all three entries in /usr/local/lib.

VLC opens the disk but I get a black screen, no errors. When I advance a track, I get a black screen with the disk title.

[stanice]

Thanks for the tip! This worked for me on macOS Sonoma 14.3.1 on Intel MBP 2019, MakeMKV 1.17.7, VLC 3.0.20:

Code: Select all

sudo mkdir /usr/local/lib
sudo ln -s /Applications/MakeMKV.app/Contents/lib/libmmbd_new.dylib /usr/local/lib/libaacs.dylib

I was able to play Planet Earth II UHD on a Pioneer drive in VLC with MakeMKV open, after running those commands. Before, VLC complained that no AACS library was installed, and wouldn't play the disc.

Another thing I tried successfully based on this reddit post, was copying the library from the MakeMKV app bundle into the VLC app bundle.

Code: Select all

sudo cp /Applications/MakeMKV.app/Contents/lib/libmmbd_new.dylib /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/lib/libmmbd.dylib

(I removed the symlink created by the first option, before trying the second option.)

In both cases I was able to watch the disc normally in VLC with full menus etc. I'm not sure if this will survive a restart (particularly the first option) but a simple script or Automator action could be created, if needed, to set this up prior to playback.