Want to watch Blu-rays on Ubuntu with full menu support? I’m going to show you how to do it — don’t worry: it doesn’t require buying any expensive software.
I recently bought an external USB Blu-ray drive with the aim of (finally) watching my Doctor Who: The Collection sets on my Ubuntu laptop, when I’m in bed.
Sadly, it turns out you can’t just pop a Blu-ray disc in and watch it on Ubuntu (or most OSes) as license fees need to be paid by the developers of software that wants to ‘decrypt’ Blu-ray content. This is why most Blu-Ray player apps on Windows are paid.
Compounding the issue is that unlike DVDs, Blu-ray discs use an encryption system called AACS that relies on regular key updates to ‘decrypt’ content. This effort is designed to make discs difficult to play without using officially licensed, paid-for software.
Honestly? It makes Blu-ray awkward and obtuse — a textbook example of how not to design a media format that people will want to use. Hassle, hurdles and hoops to jump through just to watch something you paid money for is not consumer-friendly.
There is good news, though.
You can watch Blu-rays on Ubuntu (or any Linux distro) without paying for pricey software. Here’s what I did to get it working – it may seem long-winded, but it’s pretty simple.
Enabling Ubuntu Blu-ray Playback
You can watch Blu-rays on Ubuntu (and other operating systems) without following my guide, but the experience you get won’t be as good.
Why? You won’t have menus.
Before we get to into the setup process, you need the following:
- An external or internal Blu-ray drive (connected to Ubuntu)
- Ubuntu 22.04 LTS or later (it may work on older versions)
- Internet connection (we will download the packages we need)
- A Blu-ray disc to test (some heavily protected discs may still cause issues)
- Patience (this won’t take long, but reading and checking takes time)
You can simply install VLC, download a meta-key file from an (oddly domiciled) website, copy it a location deep within your file system, wince, and then hope it works. If it does, it won’t display any Blu-ray menus, which is a bit of a bummer for TV series sets.
This is the method well documented and the main hits when you Google “how to watch BluRays in VLC”.
But …It didn’t work for me, no matter how many times I repeated the steps, or which OS I tried it on.
Besides, I like being able to access disc menus since Blu-Rays are crammed with bonus content, some of it short ephemera that I’d struggle to find or identify using nothing but a menu of raw time-codes.
Which is why I hit upon a better solution using free software called MakeMKV.
MakeMKV + VLC = Blu-Ray Showtime
Before you follow me down this rabbit hole any further I will state upfront that MakeMKV is proprietary software. It’s free to use, but you can’t probe the source code. If you want to “nope” out now, that’s understandable.
However, I reason that since Blu-ray is a proprietary format anyway, and I use plenty of closed-source software for entertainment, such as Steam, Spotify, etc, I’m happy with this situation. Besides, I paid for my discs and I want to watch them!
MakeMKV is technically paid software, but you can use it and all of its features (it’s designed to rip discs to MKV files) for “free” while it’s in beta. It’s been in beta for over 10 years – updated regularly, works great, but in no hurry to shake off the beta label.
To use MakeMKV for playing Blu-ray discs in VLC (with menus) we will do the following:
- Download and install MakeMKV
- Install VLC (Deb version not Snap1)
- Link a few files
You can install MakeMKV on Linux by compiling it. This is not as hard as it sounds; the MakeMKV forums cover the process step-by-step.
If you use Ubuntu, Linux Mint or an Ubuntu-based distro, you have it easier: add the MakeMKV PPA. This contains pre-built packages of the latest MakeMKV release, making it easy to install MakeMKV on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and above.
Using random repos from people you don’t know is a security risk. That said, this PPA has been around for years and no-one, to my knowledge, has encountered any issues from using it. Plus, you CAN compile MakeMKV manually yourself. This PPA is for the lazy – and the trusting!
To add the MakeMKV PPA to your system, open your Terminal window and run:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:heyarje/makemkv-beta
Next, you can proceed to install MakeMKV:
sudo apt update && sudo apt install makemkv-bin makemkv-oss
Allow all of the packages time to download and unpack.
Next, install VLC from the Ubuntu archives (do not use the VLC snap), and install some additional dependencies. I don’t know if the extras are strictly necessary, but they don’t take up much room and won’t hurt to have to hand:
sudo apt install vlc libbluray2 libaacs0
With everything fetched, open MakeMKV from your app menu/picker/launcher.
It will prompt you that the app is ‘unregistered’, you need to copy the the latest beta key from the MakeMKV forum and enter it in the ‘register’ box.
This key is requires. It lets you to use the software for free for a few months. When the key expires, you go back to the link above, copy the new key, and enter it again. Rinse and repeat for however long you want to use the software.
Finally, the crucial bit: enable Blu-ray playback in VLC by running this command:
sudo ln -s libmmbd.so.0 /usr/lib/
Now you’re all set.
Insert a Blu-ray disc, open VLC, and then go to “Open Disc…” > Blu-ray > Play and after a short pause it will start playing.
On recent releases you will be able to see and interact with the on-disc menu using your keyboard or mouse.
Some older releases may not have working menus due to older Java requirements. VLC will auto-play the main feature. Use the VLC > Playback > Title menu to navigate other items, and change audio track or enable subtitles from their respective menus.
Psst — if you’re on Windows and macOS you need to check a “VLC integration” option in MakeMKV’s Preferences section, but this (apparently) isn’t required on Linux. If you encounter issues, go do it anyway.
Want to go further?
MakeMKV is more than a hack to watch Blu-rays in VLC with menus2. It’s also a very capable tool for backing up Blu-ray. You can copy entire disks or rip specific titles on a disc to the MKV format, along with options to include multiple audio tracks, subtitle tracks, etc.
Personally, I’m just happy to watch my Blu-rays in VLC. I’ve neither the disk space or the patience to rip my entire media collection for wire-free viewing, but if you do let me know how you get on!