Did HandBrake Break?
Posted 08/19/2009 at 3:40pm
| by Scott Rose
I used to depend on HandBrake for making backup copies of the commercial DVDs that I purchased. But now, with the latest version of HandBrake, my converted video files are nothing but static.
HandBrake (free, www.handbrake.fr) is a popular, feature-packed application that converts DVDs into MPEG-4 files. However, almost all commercial DVDs are encrypted by a DRM (digital rights management) technology known as CSS (content scramble system) that’s designed to prevent you from copying these DVDs onto your computer. This encryption of DVDs has been widely criticized, because it prevents you from exercising such fair-use rights as making a backup copy of your own purchased DVD.

Just drag VLC into your Applications folder, and HandBrake will be able to decrypt and convert your commercial DVDs.
HandBrake used to be able to decrypt commercial DVDs encrypted with CSS. But starting with version 0.9.3, HandBrake lost that ability. Fortunately, the app VLC Media Player (free, www.videolan.org) still has the ability to decrypt commercial DVDs. And even better, HandBrake can automatically use the decryption libraries that are built into VLC, so if you have VLC installed on your Mac, you can continue using HandBrake like you used to.
Just drag VLC into your Applications folder and then launch HandBrake. You’ll be able to make backup copies of your commercial DVDs again.