DRM, short for Digital Rights Management, is a kind of technology adopted by digital media sellers to control the way customers using those files after sale. It's declared to protect the rights of copyrighters. Meanwhile, it takes a lot of inconvenience for personal fair use when you want to rip commercial DVD movies you bought for backup or handy playback. Therefore, some powerful DRM converters are popular in the market, such as Handbrake. However, not all the people know how to use HandBrake well. How to use Handbrake to remove copy protection on Mac? Why I need decrypting tools like libdvdcss? So, in this article, we will show more details about HandBrake, in the meantime, we will introduce you to a best way to remove DRM from DVD with Leawo DVD Ripper.

Related Reading: How to Play DRM Protected WMA Files on Any Device?

Part 1. Can HandBrake Remove DRM from DVD?

Ironically, DRM, the way to protect the right of copyright owners, actually infringes the users' right on fair use of these digital contents in the meantime. So, there comes the ripping software. For the DVD ripping, you may firstly think of Handbrake. And yes! Handbrake is a free open-source DVD ripper that can freely digitize DVDs into MP4 and MKV formats consumable on your PC, Mac, TVs, PS4, phones or tablets. It is, or at least looks a little more complicated that some of the others we're looking at here, but don’t let that put you off. By default, there's no support for bypassing copy-protection. So, the answer to the question “Can HandBrake Remove DRM from DVD” is No. Then what should you do if you insist on removing DRM form DVD with HandBrake? Keep reading.

Part 2. How to Remove DRM form DVD with HandBrake?

As we have mentioned above, Handbrake don’t support for bypassing copy-protection. 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.

Knowing why we should install libdvdcss for HandBrake, then we could download and Install Libdvdcss for Handbrake.  If you are new to Mac, check the steps below.

Step 1. Open the Terminal application.

Step 2. Enter the following command into the terminal: /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)

Step 3. Hit Return > Return > enter password to begin the installation of Homebrew.

Step 4. Start Terminal and enter brew install libdvdcss, hit enter

Step 5. After the downloading and installation, you can follow Handbrake tutorial to rip encrypted DVDs.

HandBrake rip DVD to digital format

Step 1. Go to its official page. Free download and install the latest version of HandBrake on your own operating system.  

Step 2. Insert the DVD into the DVD-ROM on your computer. You are also allowed to rip ISO image using Handbrake. Then Handbrake will scan the DVD automatically, which many take up generally 10 seconds (also depending on your DVD drive).
Note: You are suggested to choose the longest duration in the list as this generally contains the true movie content. Or else, choose the other title.

Step 3. On the HandBrake's preset menu on the right side, you can choose MKV or MP4 video format, or select among a slew of Apple devices. The video transcoder seems to be designed more convenient for Apple users. If you need to rip a DVD to fit other devices that are not listed in the preset profiles, you should make some settings or create new presets by yourself.

Note: Averagely, a full-length movie is 1GB large in file size. So please make sure you have enough space to store your rip.

Step 4. There are options that allow you to adjust the final video/audio quality of your video. For example, you can try different bit rates and Dolby processing. By default, the output file will be saved to the Desktop. You can click the Browse button on the right of the interface, navigate to where you want to save the file, and type in a file name in the box. Click OK.

Step 5. Click Start to begin the process of ripping DVD to MKV using Handbrake. In our test of ripping DVD (A Touch of Frost, 93 min, 4.1 GB) to MKV, Handbrake took 20 min at 118 fps, depending on your computer configuration, file size and DVD drive.

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. And more and more people complain HandBrake Crashes During Encode. Then, what can we do?

Part 3: Is There a Better way to Remove DRM from DVD?

Before we answer the question, someone may ask why should we turn to HandBrake alternatives? There are three main reasons:

Firstly, HandBrake doesn’t decrypt encrypted DVD discs, while most DVD discs in the market are commercial and copy protected. Secondly, HandBrake only outputs MKV or MP4 files, but users sometimes want other files like WMV files for specific devices or uses. Thirdly, HandBrake crashes frequently on some computers that bother users a lot. Of course, there are other reasons such as ripping speed, program stability, and other special needs like DVD movie editing or 3D movie creating.

Here we would like to introduce you a quite powerful and practical HandBrake alternative to do this. That’s Leawo DVD Ripper.

Part 4: Best DVD DRM Removal - Leawo DVD Ripper

Leawo DVD Ripper, the best DRM protection removal software for DVDs can help you helps you rip and convert DVD to video/audio in 180+ formats, such as, DVD to MP4, DVD to MKV, DVD to WMV, DVD to MP3, etc. that is compatible with almost all multimedia devices and gadgets. With the zero-difficulty DVD ripper tool, you can easily rip copy protected DVD at the fastest quality with good quality. Moreover, you can also edit videos with different features to enhance the video effects. In this guide we will give you step-by-step and precise instructions on how to remove DRM form DVD Leawo DVD Ripper. If you use Mac, you could download Leawo DVD Ripper for Mac.

  • 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

Step 1. Insert any of your DVD, even it has built-in DRM copy protection, in the DVD-ROM of your computer. Then open Leawo DVD Ripper and click "Add Blu-ray/DVD" button to browse and add source DVD movies from disc drive.

add-source-file

Note: Once DVD content is selected, you will be provided 3 options for you to import DVD file(s): Full Movie, Main Movie and Custom Mode. Full Movie allows you to import all titles, and Main Movie only imports the longest title by default while you can freely choose titles for importing under Custom Mode. You can select a mode and click “OK” button to start importing source DVD files.

Step 2. The best DRM removal software can convert your source DVD to any digital video file. Click the drop-down box next to the "Add Blu-ray/DVD" button, and then click "Change" to select output format. Multiple Common Video, Audio and HD Video formats are available. You can also select output format according to your device under "Device" tab. You can click "Edit" button on the drop-down panel after setting output format to change the video and audio parameters of selected profile like Video Codec, Bit Rate, Resolution, Frame Rate, Aspect Ratio, Audio Codec, Channel, Sample Rate, etc.

set-profile

Step 3. Now, click the big green "Convert" button on the sub-menu bar and then set output directory in the "Save to" box. After that, click the bottom "Convert" button on the pop-up sidebar to start converting. The whole process will be completed in seconds. Open the output folder to check your DRM free DVD movies.

set-directory

Disclaimer: Leawo Software does not advocate ripping copy-protected DVDs for any commercial purpose and suggests referring to the DVD copyright laws in your countries before doing so.

Part 5: Conclusion

In all, Handbrake can only rip homemade DVDs and rip css-protected DVD or block region locks with the aid of libdvdcss. But the point is there are still many other commercial DVDs coming with other measures that Handbrake libdvdcss cannot deal with. So, why not try the best DVD DRM Removal - Leawo DVD Ripper? Leawo DVD Ripper is also the best Handbrake alternative, which now supports conquering all types of DVDs, ranging from the latest DVDs, 99-title DVDs, workout DVDs, AV DVDs, TV series DVDs and choose the right title from the other fake ones due to its unique DVD title check mechanism. It is the strongest DVD ripper that is equipped with the richest outputs. Now it is time to download and have a try!