“My brother once installed HandBrake and some extra plugins on my computer so that I could rip and convert DVD disc with HandBrake. It did work on any DVD disc I inserted to the disc drive. But yesterday when I tried to rip and convert another DVD disc with HandBrake, I got a notice saying ‘HandBrake libdvdcss not Working’. I have no idea what this is and how I can fix this. Does any one know how to fix HandBrake libdvdcss not working issue? Or is there any alternative to HandBrake in ripping DVD disc? Appreciate for any advice.”

As a free and open-source DVD converter available for multi-platforms like Windows, Mac and Linux, HandBrake might have been the most popular DVD ripping tool in this world. However, we might meet various kinds of issues and problems during HandBrake usage. If you have met the notice like “HandBrake libdvdcss not working”, this guide would be helpful to you. We would like to explain what HandBrake libdvdcss, how it works and how to fix “HandBrake libdvdcss not working” issue.

Part 1. Why you need libdvdcss for HandBrake?

Some people might wonder why we need libdvdcss for HandBrake? Doesn’t HandBrake already be able to rip DVD discs and then convert to MP4/MKV video files? To answer this question, let’s firstly learn what HandBrake is and what HandBrake can do.

handbrake-03

As a multi-platform free media converter tool, HandBrake could help you easily convert videos from supported source formats to MP4 or MKV format, rip unprotected DVD and Blu-ray discs to MP4 or MKV files for playback on video players or portable devices. That means you could easily rip unprotected DVD discs with HandBrake.However, as to copy protected materials, HandBrake does not defeat or circumvent copy protection of any kind. It does not work with video files employing Digital Rights Management (DRM). This includes but is not limited to, copy protected content from iTunes, Amazon Video, Netflix, or other online providers, and many commercial DVD and Blu-ray discs. Therefore, obviously, to rip DVD discs with protections, you need to turn to other 3rd-party DVD ripping software tools or some plugin to HandBrake.

libdvdcss is a plugin for HandBrake. It is a free and open source software library for accessing and unscrambling DVDs encrypted with the CSS (a kind of DVD copy protection). In other words, it is “lib (library) + dvd (DVD) + css (Content Scrambling System)”. Generally speaking, if you want to rip CSS-protected DVDs via HandBrake, libdvdcss is necessary. This makes it simple and straightforward: libdvdcss makes it possible to decrypt copy-protected DVD discs for ripping and converting to MP4/MKV files with HandBrake.

Part 2. How to use libdvdcss for HandBrake DVD ripping?

Knowing why we should install libdvdcss for HandBrake, we could then move to how to use libdvdcss for HandBrake DVD ripping. You could follow the below steps to learn the detailed operation on using libdvdcss for HandBrake to rip and convert CSS-DVD discs to MP4 or MKV files for unlimited playback on MP4/MKV media players or devices.

Section 1: How to use libdvd css for HandBrake DVD ripping on Windows computer:

  • Step 1. First of all, download and install HandBrake from its official site on your computer. If you already have this program installed on your computer, move up to the following steps directly.
  • Step 2. The latest version of libdvdcss is 1.4.1. Download libdvdcss on your Windows 10/8.1/8/7 computer via the below links:
  • libdvdcss download for 32-bit system l libdvdcss download for 64-bit

  • Step 3. After downloading, leave the filename as libdvdcss-2.dll. [Attention, some said that you need to rename libdvdcss-2.dll to libdvdcss.dll. No, this extension won’t work if you do that.] Then drag the .dll file into your HandBrake program folder. If you did not change the installation directory of HandBrake during the HandBrake installation, it should be “C:\Program Files\HandBrake”.
  • Step 4. Now restart HandBrake and you are able to encode CSS-encrypted DVDs with libdvdcss HandBrake.

Now, you could then add CSS-DVD to HandBrake as you usually do, and then try to rip CSS-DVDs to MP4/MKV video files on your computer running Windows OS.

Section 2: How to use libdvdcss for HandBrake DVD ripping on Mac

If you are a Mac computer owner, refer to these steps below to learn how to enable HandBrake ripping encrypted CSS-DVDs with the help of libdvdcss.

  • Step 1. If you’re on Yosemite or older, you can download the libdvdcss package file and double-click it to install it directly for HandBrake, and then rip encrypted CSS-DVDs with HandBrake as you usually do in ripping non-protected DVDs.
  • Step 2. If you’re on El Capitan or newer, you need to make use of Homebrew. To install libdvdcss, press Command+Space and search for Terminal to launch a command line window. Then, type in brew install libdvdcss and hit enter. Homebrew will download and install the libdvdcss library. Once you’re back at the command prompt, the library will be installed.

Once the libdvdcss is installed on your Mac computer, HandBrake should be able to read and rip all encrypted CSS-DVDs on Mac computer.

Part 3. Why HandBrake libdvdcss not working?

Due to the DRM policy, HandBrake removed internal DVD decryption since version 0.9.3 in 2018. Although HandBrake had released several updates to improve program performance, decryption for copyright content is not involved at all. Therefore if you want to rip encrypted DVDs with HandBrake you have to make use of libdvdcss, which helps get rid of encryption and allows HandBrake to read encrypted DVDs..

On the other hand, libdvdcss offers no more compiled libraries (libdvdcss2) for Windows 32 bit, Windows 64 bit from version 1.2.13 released in 2013 February. Recent years, distributors add more complex structural protections unrelated to CSS on new DVDs so that old complied libdvdcss will come no effect.

It’s more commonly for Mac users to encounter HandBrake libdvdcss not working issue. Installing libdvdcss.dylib on macOS has been disabled for a long time. If you haven't built and installed libdvdcss on Mac with success, you will fail to rip an encrypted DVD with HandBrake.You will have to turn to some other DVD ripping alternatives to HandBrake, which will be described in detail in the following part.

What's more, the latest HandBrake 1.2.0 is only available for 64 bit. HandBrake libdvdcss not working problem happens when 32bit libdvdcss is installed.
With all these issues, now it’s quite usual to meet this issue. How to fix HandBrake libdvdcss not working issue? Check the below content.

Part 4. How to fix HandBrake libdvdcss not working?

As mentioned above, we could install the latest libdvdcss for HandBrake to fix HandBrake libdvdcss not working issue. However, sometimes installing the latest version of libdvdcss might not work, or you couldn’t even install it on our computer successfully. Then, what can we do? Here we would like to introduce you a quite powerful and practical HandBrake alternative to do this. That’s Leawo DVD Ripper.

As a professional 3rd-party DVD ripping software tool, Leawo DVD Ripper has been highly positively voted for its powerful disc decrypting performance. Featuring the latest disc decrypting technology, Leawo DVD Ripper enables you to decrypt CSS-DVDs from all regions, and then convert DVD movies to videos in various formats like DVD to MP4, DVD to MKV, DVD to MOV, DVD to AVI, etc. what’s more, while converting DVD file, you can adjust the settings of the output file to your own preference such as video codec, aspect ratio, resolution, frame rate, audio codec, channel, etc. You could choose desired subtitles and audio tracks from source DVD movies for output. It even allows you to convert 2D DVD to 3D video in 6 different 3D movie effects.

  • Leawo DVD Ripper
  • Leawo DVD Ripper

    ☉ Convert DVD to video/audio files like MKV, MP4, AVI, FLV, RMVB, etc

    ☉ Convert DVD to iPad, iPhone, Android devices

    ☉ Edit DVD video files with built-in video editor

    ☉ Add 3D effect with built-in 3D movie creator

    ☉ Selectable subtitles and audio tracks from source DVD movies for output videos

Follow the below steps to learn how to use this HandBrake alternative to rip and convert encrypted/non-encrypted DVDs to video in formats more than MP4 and MKV. You need to firstly download and install Leawo DVD Ripper (it’s built in Leawo Prof. Media).

Step 1. First of all, launch Leawo Prof. Media and then hit the “Convert” option on the top panel. Then, hit the “Add Blu-ray/DVD” option to load the wanted DVD file or directly drag the wanted file.

add-source-file

Tips:

    You will see three content loading options, i.e. Full Movie, Main Movie and Custom Mode. Here, the Full Movie option means all detailed contents including subtitles will be loaded; Main Movie means the longest part of DVD file will be loaded and Custom Mode means you are free to decide the clip that you want to convert.

handbrake-for-truehd-01

Step 2. Click on the button right before the big green “Convert” button and select the “Change” option to enter the “Profile” panel, where you could select output format from various groups according to your own needs. You could even make use of the internal profile search bar for quick profile setting.

choose-output-profile

Tips:

    You could adjust the parameters of selected output profile, including video codec, bit rate, aspect ratio, frame rate, audio codec, etc. To do this, open the drop-down panel by clicking the button right before the big green “Convert” button and then enter the “Profile Settings” panel.

Leawo-set-profile-settings

Step 3. Click on the green icon of “Convert” option and a sidebar will pop out. Now, specify an output location to save the output file and then click on the bottom “Convert” button to start ripping and converting DVDs to videos.

set-output-directory

Then, you just need to wait for the conversion to complete. After converting, you could then freely make use of the converted DVD movies in any way you like.