Play Encrypted DVD Formats on Ubuntu Linux

For sometime I thought the only way to play an encrypted DVD in Ubuntu was to use something like Fluendo DVD Player which has the restricted codecs in order to play such DVDs. The only problem with this is that non of my other media players such as VLC could play them. This is a pain because I found that the Fluendo DVD Player is limited and prefer VLC's functionality.

The cool thing is that recently I discovered a way around this. On Ubuntu's website they have posted an article about RestrictedFormats/PlayingDVDs. All that was required was two simple lines of code in the terminal in order to play encrypted DVDs with other programs. Canonical claim that these two lines will work on Ubuntu 9.04 onwards.

In order to do this open your terminal (ctrl+alt+t) and insert the following lines of code:

sudo apt-get install libdvdread4

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

You may need to reboot your system after doing this. Either way when this is complete you will find that you can play encrypted DVDs in any media player.