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

The place to discuss Mac OS X version of MakeMKV
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ROBERTV
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Nov 26, 2022 5:13 pm

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

Post by 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 Some links seemed to be outdated.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:

Code: Select all

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
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Dec 19, 2022 1:21 pm

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

Post by 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
Posts: 8
Joined: Tue Feb 22, 2022 9:48 pm

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

Post by 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.
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