When you try to play a Blu-ray disc on your PS3, you might get a message from time to time that requires you to renew the encryption key on your PS3 in order to watch the Blu-ray movie. And the way to renew the encryption key is to perform a system update, which normally requires you to connect your PS3 to the Internet. While hooking a PS3 up to the Internet isn't that complicated, there might be times when you are not able to do that. Is it possible to renew PS3 encryption key without Internet? Check out the content below for more information about how to renew PS3 encryption key without Internet and why you need to renew the PS3 encryption key at all.

What is the PS3 encryption key and why would you need to renew it to watch Blu-ray?

It's all about DRM(Digital Rights Management). Here's how Blu-ray works. A Blu-ray playback device, say, the PS3, only have temporary rights to play movies as their encryption key will expire after a certain period of time. The only way for you to keep playing the newest movies with your Blu-ray playback device is to update and keep up with the newest firmware.

Studios use AACS(Advanced Access Content System), a kind of copyright-protection technology to protect Blu-ray movies from being distributed freely. And an encryption key is applied on both the Blu-ray disc and the playback device of the Blu-ray disc to protect the copyrighted content.

Typically an AACS encryption key will be valid for 12 to 18 months. And after that period, it will have to be renewed for playback of the newest Blu-ray movies.

Is it possible to renew PS3 encryption key without Internet?

When you get the message from PS3 that requires you to renew the PS3 encryption key, you can directly perform a system update to do that if your PS3's been hooked up to the Internet all along. If you are having a problem getting your PS3 on the Internet, is it possible to renew PS3 encryption key without Internet? The answer is yes.

Sony does offer a way to update the firmware on the PS3 without directly downloading the latest firmware on the PS3. That is to download the latest software update from Sony PS3's official site and installing it on the PS3. Below is how to perform a PS3 encryption key update without Internet.

  • 1. Google playstation 3 software update and click on the first result.
  • Renew PS3 encryption key

  • 2. On this page, click the Download Now button to download the latest software update to your computer.
  • Renew PS3 encryption key

  • 3. Insert your USB drive into the USB port of your computer and open it in File Explorer. Create a new folder with the folder name "UPDATE".
  • 4. Save the changes and eject the USB stick from your computer.
  • 5. Insert the flash drive into the USB port of your PS3.
  • 6. Turn on your PS3, if there's no disc in the tray, and then you will get right to the main interface. From the main interface, go to Settings>System Update and you will see 2 options for performing a software update on your PS3. Use your controller to highlight Update via Storage Media and Press the X button on your controller to start installing the update.

That's how to renew encryption key on PS3 without internet. It's fairly easy to operate. If you can't get your PS3 online to update the software and renew the PS3 encryption key, just give this a shot to renew encryption key ps3 without internet.

How to renew PS3 encryption key with Internet connection

In case you haven't done this before, here's how to renew PS3 encryption key when you have internet connection.

  • 1. Turn on your PS3, make sure there's no game disc in it so that you can get right into the main interface.
  • 2. Go straight to Settings>System Update, and this time, highlight the first option, which is Update via Internet. And then press X to confirm your choice. The update process will start and all you need to do is follow the on-screen instructions.

Performing a system update with internet connection is a little bit easier than without internet. But sometimes there might be factors that will limit your choices for performing the update.

After performing a system update for your PS3, the PS3 encryption key must've been renewed. Just put in a Blu-ray disc and see if you can play it now.

How to rip Blu-ray to MP4 to play on PS3 when you are not able to renew the PS3 encryption key

If you can't get the PS3 encryption key renewed, there's another way you can try to watch the Blu-ray movie. And that is to rip Blu-ray to a PS3-compatible video.

As is known to all, PS3 supports playback of videos in certain formats via storage media. Below is a list of all the supported formats for your reference.

Memory Stick Video Format

  • MPEG-4 SP (AAC LC)
  • H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile (AAC LC)
  • MPEG-2 TS(H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, AAC LC)

MP4 file format

  • H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile (AAC LC)

MPEG-1 (MPEG Audio Layer 2)

MPEG-2 PS (MPEG2 Audio Layer 2, AAC LC, AC3(Dolby Digital), LPCM)

MPEG-2 TS(MPEG2 Audio Layer 2, AC3(Dolby Digital), AAC LC)

MPEG-2 TS(H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, AAC LC)

AVI

  • Motion JPEG (Linear PCM)
  • Motion JPEG (μ-Law)

AVCHD (.m2ts / .mts)

DivX

WMV

  • VC-1(WMA Standard V2)

After knowing what video formats are supported, all you need to do is convert the Blu-ray movie to a supported format and put it on a USB drive to play on your PS3. This is a good alternative to renewing the encryption key.

If you want to give this a try, you can try using Leawo Blu-ray Ripper. This Blu-ray Ripper software is well-known for its high quality output videos. You can get lossless MKV videos, high quality HD MP4 videos and a lot of other videos with it from Blu-ray discs.

Blu-ray Ripper

Leawo Blu-ray Ripper 

☉ Supports ripping Blu-rays to videos and audio in 180+ formats.
☉ Abundant video editing features.
☉ Fast Blu-ray ripping.

Here's how to use Leawo Blu-ray Ripper to rip Blu-ray to a PS3-compatible format. Generally, PS3 can play most MP4 videos, so you can choose to rip Blu-ray to MP4 with Leawo Blu-ray Ripper. Note that Leawo Blu-ray Ripper is integrated into a software package called Prof.Media.

Step 1. As is mentioned previously, Leawo Blu-ray Ripper is part of Leawo Prof.Media. So the software installation package you download from online is actually for installing Prof.Media. After installation, open Prof.Media and the Blu-ray Ripper icon can be found on the main interface. Just click it with your mouse to open it.

Launch Blu-ray Ripper

Step 2. Play the Blu-ray disc to your Blu-ray drive. Make sure the optical drive you use is a Blu-ray drive so that it can read the Blu-ray disc you want to rip. Usually it'll take just a few seconds for the computer and the program to detect the disc. Afterwards, you can start importing the data in the disc to the program to get it ready for ripping. To import source media files from the disc, click the Add Blu-ray/DVD button from the upper-left corner of the Blu-ray Ripper interface. There should be a drop-down menu with 3 options on it. Click Add from CD-ROM, and the menu that follows is the option for importing the Blu-ray disc data to the program. The program also supports directly drag-n-drop. After your computer detects the disc, you can open the disc folder and drag the folder to Leawo Blu-ray ripper's interface to import disc data. It'll take just a few seconds for the program to load the data.

Add source media file

Step 3. The main task in this step is to select videos to rip and convert to MP4. As one Blu-ray disc will contain multiple videos, you need to decide which videos you want to rip. You don't have to rip all the videos if that's not what you want. Just check the Custom Mode button to select the videos you need from the video list below. But if you do want all the videos, just check Full Movie. Main Movie is for you to quickly pick out the main movie from the video list for ripping. Click OK to get to the next phase.

Select video to convert

Step 4. The chosen video will be added to the video list for further settings. On top of the list there's a video button. By default you will see the MP4 Video label on it. That's the default output format. Click on it to display a new menu and click the Change button on that menu. You will open the Profile panel on which you can find all the supported video and audio formats. There are also preset profiles for some specific devices and PS3 is one of them. Go to Device>Sony and find the PS3 profile from this panel.

Set output format

Step 5. Return to the video list and click the Convert button next to the MP4 video button which would become PS3 after you select PS3 as the default profile. A sidebar would be displayed on the right side of the interface. Set where you'd like to save the output videos in on the sidebar and click the Convert button to start ripping the Blu-ray movie.

Start conversion

If you prefer a video guide, check out the video below which shows you how to use Leawo Blu-ray Ripper to rip Blu-ray to common videos.