Optical discs are not going through their best moment, but you still see a large number of users who prefer to use this format to watch their favorite movies and series. Windows 10 does not include any tool to play Blu-ray discs , but this is something that we can solve in a very simple way using totally free tools.
Get a Blu-ray optical drive
The first step we need to take to be able to play Blu-ray on our Windows 10 computer is to acquire an optical drive capable of reading this disc format . Many users think that DVD optical drives are compatible with Blu-ray, but this is not true.
There are several manufacturers that sell both internal and external Blu-ray optical drives, so that we can acquire the one that best suits our needs. Internal drives are best suited for desktop PCs, while external drives are ideal for laptops.
The prices of these units usually range between € 50 and € 100 approximately. The most economical models are usually those that are limited to reading Blu-ray discs, although they retain the ability to burn DVD.
Once you've gotten your optical drive capable of reading Blu-ray, it's time to look for software that allows us to play these discs properly.
Play your Blu-ray with VLC Media Player
VLC Media Player is for many users the best multimedia file player that we can install on our computer. It is a free and open source program that offers a multitude of options.
You can download VLC Media Player for free from the official website of this project.
However, although VLC Media Player is capable of playing Blu-ray discs without problems, it is a function that requires us to download two additional files . It is an open source library, which has been designed to allow the playback of Blu-ray discs in the Windows operating system using VLC.
This library consists of two files, the AACS dynamic library and the key database . We can download both files from the official website of the project.
You may receive an error message in your browser related to a problem with the SSL certificate of this website, you just have to add it as an exception to access.
Once you have downloaded both files, you need to copy the one from the database to the path C: \ ProgramData \ aacs \. If there is no aacs folder, you can create them very easily by clicking the right mouse button.
On the other hand, the libaacs.dll library should be placed in the VLC folder. Windows may ask you for administrator permissions to copy this file into the folder, just accept and the process will complete without any problem.
Once this is done, we will have our VLC media player ready to see all our Blu-ray discs.
Once you have inserted the Blu-ray disc into the optical drive of your PC, you need to open the VLC program and go to the " Media " tab at the top of the window.
Select the " Open disc " option , and a new window will open from which you can start playing your Blu-ray disc.
Here ends our tutorial on how to play Blu-ray discs on Windows 10 for free, remember that you can leave a comment if you have any questions.