DVD Player User Guide
Though VLC is a free and open source program, it can play most multimedia files as well as DVD, CD, VCD. Better still, the 2.0 and later version can perform as a Blu-ray player to help you play non-protected Blu-ray disc on Mac with some extra operations. Look for details from How to Play Blu-ray Movie with VLC on Windows & Mac. There are a few options for playing multiple video files from a folder or some other movie collection, including even using iTunes, but perhaps the best option for most Mac users is VLC, a free third party app that is also a bit of a swiss army knife of media playing, not to mention cross platform compatible, and arguably one of the best video players on a Mac.
You can use the DVD Player app to play DVDs or DVD movie files stored on your computer.
Note: You can’t copy and play video folders from DVD discs with copy protection. DVD Player also doesn’t play other media, such as Blu-ray discs, or recognize video content burned onto certain types of DVD-RW discs.
Play a DVD
Insert a disc, and the DVD Player app starts playing the disc.
If the disc doesn’t play automatically, press the Space bar after the disc is recognized.
Play a DVD movie file stored on your Mac
In the DVD Player app on your Mac, Choose File > Open DVD Media.
Navigate to the VIDEO_TS folder that contains the movie file you want to play, then click Open.
Control playback for a DVD or DVD movie file
In the DVD Player app on your Mac, play a DVD or DVD movie file.
Move the pointer anywhere over the movie to show the playback controls, then do any of the following:
Play or pause: Click the Play button or Pause button (or use the playback controls in the Touch Bar).
Adjust the volume: Drag the volume slider right or left to increase or decrease the volume (or use the playback controls in the Touch Bar).
Rewind or fast-forward: Click a point on the timeline to skip directly to that location, or drag the progress handle left to rewind or right to fast-forward (or use the playback controls in the Touch Bar).
Access the disc menus (if available): Click Menu to choose other options available from the disc menu such as special features or subtitles.
Customize additional playback options: See Change movie window size and location and Customize audio output.
Method 1: Using QuickTime Plugin Perian
Mac Quicktime MKV plugin - Perian has a solution to the problem MKV files not playing on Macbook, iMac or Mac mini. With Perian, you can play MKV video movie in HD, SD on any Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later, El Capitan, Yosemite, needless of MKV player for Mac. And below are the detailed steps to play MKV on your Mac using QuickTime:
- 1. Double-click the MKV file in the Finder.
- 2. Click on the File option and Open it
- 3. Select the MKV file and click Open.
- 4. If a file is an older media format, QuickTime Player may convert it before playing.
The formats that can be played on Mac: QuickTime Movie (.mov), MPEG-4 (.mp4, .m4v), MPEG-2 (OSX 10.0-10.6 are exclusive), MPEG-1, 3GPP, 3GPP2, AVCHD (OSX 10.0-10.7 are exclusive), AVI ((Motion JPEG only), DV.
Method 2: Using VLC Media Player
VLC Media Player is is a free cross-platform multimedia player that can play most multimedia files, DVDs, etc. It can be downloaded to Windows PC or Mac computer. Here's how you can play MKV on Mac using VLC Media Player
- 1. Go to official App Store on your computer.
- 2. Download and install VLC Media Player.
- 3. Find the MKV file you want to play.
- 4. Load it to VLC Media Player to play it.
Method 3: Using MacX Video Converter
MacX Video Converter Pro helps to convert MKV to MP4, M4V, MOV, AVI, and other video formats that are supported by QuickTime and VLC, or other media players. With the MKV video converter, you can play MKV on Mac freely, solve VLC, Quicktime MKV playing issues, and even add MKV to iTunes, Final Cut Pro, iMovie etc. You don't need to sacrifice any video audio quality during the conversion process thanks to the advanced High Quality Engine. Meanwhile, the Level-3 Hardware Acceleration and Auto Copy technologies deliver a super-fast MKV video converting speed.
The MKV video converting software also enables you to download MKV video free from YouTube, Dailymotion, Vevo, 300＋ sites, which means you can watch MKV on Mac with no formats limits or internet connection limits.
How to Convert MKV Video Movie File for Playback on Mac:
- 1. Free download the MKV video converter on Mac and run it on your computer.
- 2. Click 'Add File' icon to navigate the local folder and find the MKV video or movie.
- 3. Select output format from the pop up window, like MP4, AVI, MOV as your needs.
- 4. Click 'RUN' button to start MKV video file conversion process. After the task is finished, you can play converted MKV on Mac with original video quality, or add the MKV video to iTunes movie library with no format limits.
If you wanna convert MKV to MP4:
Just select 'MP4' as output file format. To play MKV on Mac with QuickTime, import MKV to iMovie, convert MKV to AVI, M4V, MOV, 3GP, other supported formats.
If you have problem playing MKV because of its big size:
You can also compress the MKV video using featurs like crop, trim and parameter adjustment. To trim and crop unnecessary parts, click the Edit button. To adjust the resolutions, bit rates, codecs, other settings to shrink MKV videos, click the gear buttton beside the video icon. Then click 'Browse' button to select a destination folder to save output converted MKV file.
* Level-3 Hardware Acceleration - apply GPU acceleration of Intel, Nvidia and AMD to decode and encode MKV H.265/H.264. This feature speed up MKV HEVC conversion to solve MKV HEVC files not playing on Mac error.
* Auto Copy: when you select converting MKV to MOV/MP4 for QuickTime, this feature will move the video/audio files from MKV container to another container without re-encoding. This tech not only ensures a super-fast processing speed but also keeps 1:1 original quality of HD MKV files.
Method 4: Using MKV Player for Mac
What plays MKV files on Mac computer perfectly? Not QuickTime, not VLC, what I'm going to recommend here is a newbie, 5KPlayer, a fantastic MKV video player for Mac that I came across accidentally on forum.
Vlc Media Player For Mac
It plays MKV video in 720p, 1080p, or 4K UHD on macOS Sierra, Mac El Capitan, Yosemite, OS X 10 without freezing or buffering. It takes no time to fully load MKV file. The player for MKV also plays AVI, FLV, MOV, MTS, MP4, MP3 music, AAC, to name just a few.
Another feature that impresses me is that it is able to airplay MKV video movie from Mac to Mac, from Mac to Apple TV. This means that you can watch MKV on Mac even on airplay supported TV with no limits.
How to Fix: VLC Won't Play MKV File on macOS
Will VLC play MKV files on Mac? Yes, but not smoothly, common issues are MKV files audio not working on VLC, some MKV files not loading, open successfully, Skipping, Chopping, VLC does not support the audio or video format, etc. If you still prefer to using VLC media player, the following tips of VLC player not playing MKV may help you out, if it still fails to work, try other players.
Set all preferences before back to default, close the player, execute the reset and re-open VLC player. If that doesn't help, the most straightforward solution to let VLC play MKV files on Mac smoothly is simple, convert MKV in 720P, or HD files to VLC formats with MKV video converter. VLC player reads several formats on Mac OS X, including MP4, QuickTime format, 3GP, VOB, TS, AVI, FLV, ASF, Ogg, WAV, , MPS, etc.
Vlc Media Player For Mac Os Catalina
Bonus Tip
* Apple official applications on Mac such as QuickTime Player works with many kinds of audio and video formats, like AVI, FLV, DivX, and many more.
* Perian is not perfect, though. It only works with QT 10 or lower for it stops being updated. You may still have some problems when playing MKV on Mac. Some users are crying that they downloaded Perian, and MKV are played on QT but with no sound. And it has to read the MKV file before playing, you can not fast forward file that has not been fully loaded.
* It's better to use MKV video converter to convert the file first and watch MKV on Mac freely, or jump to method 3, resort to a MKV player for Mac.
* Big Sur (macOS 10.15) is killing off 32-bit apps. Many legacy versions of Mac apps like GarageBand, and Perian are unsupported. So to play MKV with success on your new mac operating system, make sure it is new and upgrade for the 64-bit computer.