How to Fix VLC Won’t Play DVD on Windows 10/Mac | VLC Tutorials

VLC, as the most popular open-source media player software, helps Windows and Mac users to play VCD, CD, DVD, Blu-ray discs, and digital files. Despite the great efforts of VLC, still, many users have complained about the VLC playback failure of DVDs on their Windows 10 or Mac computer.

While inserting a DVD, some VLC users find that the program is not as helpful as it used to be. Notification of ‘VLC is unable to open the MRL ‘dvd:///F:/’ strikes you and takes away the chance of playing DVD on VLC.

Luckily, such an embarrassment of VLC not playing DVD is repairable. In this tutorial, several fixes will be introduced and you may follow each to get rid of the bummer.

Why won’t VLC play my DVD?

There are multiple reasons for VLC not playing DVD issues. For instance, an outdated version of VLC, improper VLC settings, and decryption shortage are all possible reasons for the VLC playback failure.

Method 1 Update your VLC to fix VLC won’t play DVD on Windows 10/macOS

No matter what media player you plan for the DVD playback on Windows or Mac computer, it always takes some specific codecs to decode and read the .vob files inside the DVD. Once your VLC lacks such codecs due to the incapability of an outdated version, the VLC not playing DVD issue occurs.

So, check if there are any possible updates for VLC.

• Launch VLC on your Windows 10 or Mac computer, go to Help and choose Check for Update for the drop-down menu. Upgrade this media player.

If your VLC is already the latest, the codecs might somehow go wrong, try a re-installation.

• Uninstall VLC first and then download another from VideoLAN.

Method 2 Reset VLC Preferences for DVD playback to fix VLC not playing DVD on Windows 10

Sometimes, an incompatible video filter will also be the reason that VLC won’t play DVD on your Windows 10 computer. Luckily, we’re available to set up an advanced video filter for DVD playback on VLC.

Method 3 Download VideoLAN libdvdcss to fix the DVD playback failure on Windows 10/Mac

DVD publishers encrypt almost every disk to stop piracy and improper playback. Take into account that there’s a wide range of DVD encryption methods, your VLC is very likely unable to bypass the one on the current DVD.

VideoLAN, the producer of VLC Media Player, considering the continually upgrading DVD encryption, has released an extra plugin name libdvdcss.

The libdvdcss plugin is a library designed for VLC and other open-source DVD tools accessing encrypted DVDs. Once installed, you can manually add the libdvdcss to your VLC to make it eligible to play the DVD.

Finish the above steps, launch VLC on your computer and start to play the DVD.

The above 3 methods all work to fix the VLC won’t play DVD on both Mac and Windows 10 computers. Try them and get rid of the DVD playback error.

If none of these help you out of the trouble, there’re still 2 ways out for you to play the DVD on your computer. Please continue your reading to find out.

Walkarounds: How to play the DVD on Windows 10/Mac when VLC won’t play DVD

Method 1 Rip the DVD content as digital files for VLC

VLC won’t play DVD for you, but it’s still capable of playing digital files like MP4, AVI, WMV, MKV, etc. So, why not rip the DVD content as a digital file so that VLC can play the DVD movie for you without reading the disk.

To rip a DVD, you will need a professional DVD ripper tool. Here, Tipard DVD Ripper will be a perfect choice.

Now, let’s see how to use Tipard DVD Ripper to rip the DVD for your VLC.

Step 1 Load up the disk on the DVD ripper

Pop the DVD into your computer’s disk drive and launch the Tipard DVD Ripper on your computer. On its interface, hit the big blue button to import the DVD to the ripper. Tipard will take a few seconds to analyze the disk.

Step 2 Decide the profile parameters for the output

When the analysis is complete, you will see the main movie of the DVD displaying on the interface.

There, you need to decide on the audio and subtitles for the output. Then, click Rip All to and locate MP4, choose Same as Source to rip the DVD as an MP4 video losslessly.

Step 3 Complete the process

When everything is set, hit Rip All to initiate a DVD ripping. A few minutes later, the process will be complete. Click the Open Output Folder button to locate and preview the movie.

The last thing you need to do is to launch VLC and drag the ripped DVD movie to the program for playback.

Method 2 Use another media player software to play a DVD

Apart from VLC, there’s a countless amount of media players in cyberspace that are capable of playing DVDs and regular media formats.

Instead of getting stuck on the VLC playback failure for DVD, why not choose another media player that has fewer bugs but more powerful features.

If you have no idea which media player you should choose to surpass VLC, try the popular Aiseesoft Blu-ray Player.

Conclusion:

Above are all the reasons, methods, and walkarounds of the VLC not playing DVD issue. Once the fixes are incapable of solving the disturbing playback failure, try alternative ways. Either rip the DVD as digital files or try another media player software to play the DVD.