Sometimes you find it quite troublesome that you can't play some new DVDs on your standalone DVD player. If you get a new Windows 7 or 8 computer, you may find that it can't play your DVDs as Microsoft omitted this feature in Windows 7and 8. Likewise, there seems to be the same on the Mac. Even though optical media is going the way of VHS tape, there are still many contents in DVD format. So let me share 5 best free DVD player software with you to address the problem of lacking native DVD playback on Windows 7/8/8.1/10 platforms. With these free DVD player software, you could freely play DVD disc on PC.

By NCH Software. Express Burn Free CD and DVD Burner for Mac is a free CD and DVD burning program for Mac OS X. Burn audio, CDs, and data CDs for free and trial the advanced features of Video DVD. ISuper DVD Ripper - the best free DVD ripping software on Mac Store. It will help you get ripped movies from your DVD collections, and enjoy them on iPhone, iPad and any other players! Fast, safe and in high quality! Note: All DVD/Video rippers on Mac Store are allowed to rip un-encrypted DVDs only, iSuper DVD Ripper is no exception. Part 2: Top 7 Free DVD Players Software for Laptop: Windows PC and Mac: 1. VLC media player is available for free as an open source media player and it works like a cross platform type multimedia player. It follows standardised streaming protocols and can play almost all multimedia files. Mac Media Player, famous for its perfect HD playback throughout the world, is also an excellent Free DVD Player. Featuring output up to 1080p, DTS5.1 audio system, ultrafast speed, and handy operation, Macgo DVD Player software can give you the best multimedia enjoyment.

Part 1: 5 Best Free DVD Player Software for Windows

Top 1. Leawo Free Blu-ray Player

Leawo Free Blu-ray Player is the prior free DVD player software for you to play DVD on Windows 8/7/8.1/10 for free. This DVD player software freeware offers lifelong free service for playing DVD folders, DVD discs, DVD ISO files and IFO files on Windows. It is also a region free DVD player software program that could play back all DVD discs from different places and countries. The most recent DVD releases are supported. It is recommended as the best free DVD playing software also since it is a free Blu-ray player to playback all Blu-ray discs (regardless of disc protection and region codes), a free HD media player to play up to 1080p and 4K videos, a music player to tune in favorite music. This free DVD playing software has gradually become the most popular free software to play DVD, Blu-ray and HD movies on the computer. Moreover, it provides both versions for Windows and Mac.

Top 2. BlazeDVD Free

The BlazeDVD Free is mainly featuring all the DVD playback on Windows computers. To be more precise, it has the best compatibility with Windows 10 system. As so many people may have problems with DVD won't play on Windows 10 as well as most media contents because the WMP seems not to work. The free DVD player for Windows 10 also supports DVD, CD, VCD, and SVCD. This software can help solve most formats including MP4, AVI, MPEG, RMVB, VOB, WMV, DTS.

Top 3. MPL Free DVD Player

MPL Free DVD Player is another great Windows DVD player free for all users on Windows XP, Win7 x32, Win7 x64, Windows 8, WinVista, and WinVista x64. You can load up a number of video and audio files in XviD, MKV, MP4, WAV, WMA, MP3, OGG, AAC. While it is able to display DVD media data, you can also play DVD, VCD, SVCD by the tool. Acting as an open-source media player, its codec library can be amended and added to as more as you like.

Top 4. GOM Player

I should mention GOM Player in this list. It's another free software to play DVD in Windows 8. Not only DVD, but it could also play files in formats such as AVI, DAT, MPEG, DivX, XviD, WMV, ASF. It's also capable of playing even the damaged video files by skipping the frames. If you come across a file it cannot play, it will direct you to the appropriate open-source codec to install.

Top 5. UM Player

As a free multimedia player, it builds in over 270 video and audio codecs so you can handle nearly all media formats, including DVD, AAC, AC3, ASF, AVI, DIVX, FLV, H.263, Matroska, MOV, MP3, MP4, MPEG, OGG, QT, RealMedia, VOB, Vorbis, WAV, WMA, WMV, XVID and many more. This unique free DVD player software also has unique features such as subtitles search, skinnable interface, customizable hotkeys and a lot more. The UM Player also reads damaged media files and scratched CD/DVD.

Part 2: 5 Best Free DVD Player Software for Mac

Top 1. 5KPlayer

This free DVD player software for Mac has a very reliable capability of playing DVD and DVD ISO image files. Besides, some common video formats like MP4, AVI, DivX, FLV, M2TS, MKV, MPEG, MTV, MXF, OGM, RMVB, SWF are all available. At the same time, all the playback process are coming with good quality and high speed. Additional features like streaming media on different devices via AirPlay, download videos online from Vimeo, screenshots, and more are offered. The interface has a modern design and the navigation is easy to understand.

Top 2. VLC Media Player

For the Mac systems, the second-best free DVD player software recommendation is VLC Media Player. If you have trouble playing a DVD media file or you can't play it in your standard media player, let VLC do you a big favor. This free DVD playback software can be seen as a default player, simply because most individuals never get a message saying that a codec isn't supported. That includes playing commercial DVD movies. However, I know many people spend money on DVD playing software since VLC doesn't support commercial Blu-ray discs due to the copy protection involved. For that, you can trust the above Leawo Free Blu-ray Player for Mac.

Top 3. KMPlayer

Highly praised open-source multimedia application. You can use this free DVD player software to play DVD on Mac systems as well as Windows 7 and 8. Just like VLC, this DVD player software freeware contains its own internal codecs and is able to play virtually any media file you throw at it including VCD, DVD, AVI, MKV, Ogg, OGM, 3GP, MPEG-1/2/4, WMV, RealMedia, FLV and QuickTime. It has an extra feature to play incomplete or damaged AVI file.

Top 4. Real Player

Decades before, the Real Player had won its majority users on Windows because of its specialty on decoding technologies. Now the developed version has brought its new adventure on Mac OS X computers, and it works fine as it should be. Getting more Mac users with optimistic reviews, you can totally try the download DVD player for Mac free. It succeeds where Windows Media Player fails. With an improved graphic equalizer, users will enjoy the DVD media contents in a richer experience.

Top 5. QuickTime Media player

Free Mac Dvd Burner Software

There is always one reason for people consuming Apple products like Mac OS computers and laptops. That could be the preinstalled utility by the Mac system. QuickTime also has a brilliant functionality to support DVD and multiple video formats playbacks. Since this free DVD player is born with the system, it operates seamlessly on Mac as Mac users can make full use of this tool. However, from time to time, QuickTime might have problems playing uncommon media files.

Part 3: How to Play DVD on Windows

In this part, I will introduce a practical and simple guide to play DVD free on Windows system. You can try out the free DVD player for Windows 10, Leawo Blu-ray Player as the best free DVD player.

Step 1: Download the Windows DVD player free online and install it on the Windows computer.

Step 2: Open the program to get into the home interface. Here, insert a DVD disc into your DVD drive, then the name of the DVD will pop up on the main window. Just click on the disc name and the playback will begin. When the software has loaded the DVD media contents successfully, you will then see it on the playlist.

Step 3: Once the DVD playback is running, there are some shortcuts to adjust settings from multiple aspects. You can move the mouse to the title area where you could see 4 icons showing up to represent subtitle settings, video settings, audio settings, and menu.

Step 4: The first is about the subtitle settings. While you are moving toward the upper-left corner, quickly click on the first icon. That is the image of the subtitle settings. It is able to see a panel like below suggesting the options can be changed, including Enable (Disable) subtitles, Subtitle offset, Subtitle selecting, Browse for subtitle.

Step 5: The second one is for making video changes so as to fully control the DVD playback. So click on the second 'Video setting' icon for reaching the video adjustment panel. Here in the video-setting panel, there are a lot more parameters you can manipulate. You are allowed to select the method for deinterlacing, deinterlace or not, crop black bars to enhance visual effects, modify the brightness and contrast, etc.

Step 6: Try on the third option around the title area to set audio parameters. For some people, audio is one of the most important parts for DVD media contents. So for that, users are able to change options including audio volume, volume amplification that helps boost the sound over the maximum, audio offset, audio stream, the output method, the output device, etc.

Part 4: How to Play DVD on Mac

Mac users could also have a look at how to play DVD with the native free DVD player for Mac, the QuickTime player. Before starting the DVD playback, you should check if your Mac computer is connected to an external DVD disc drive.

Step 1: Put the DVD disc you want to play into the DVD drive.

Step 2: Launch the local free DVD player for Mac by double-clicking on the icon. Actually, some people think the program is not working when the interface would not come up for some versions. But the truth is that it pops as a little icon on the dock meaning it is operating.

Step 3: Once the DVD is inserted, you can find the disc name and information from the Finder. Just double click on the DVD file icon, then QuickTime will be automatically called out with a window to start loading the DVD.

Step 4: Click on the 'Play' button to begin playing DVD media contents.

Extras: How to Convert DVD to MP4

Converting your DVD disc to MP4 video is recommended if you wish to digitize your DVD movies. That is because MP4 is the most popular video format, and you can always easily share it and play it anywhere. You will need a software such as Leawo DVD Ripper for the ripping job, because it is among the best DVD rippers available today. It has top class features such as;

• Leawo DVD Ripper

  ☉ Decrypt and rip DVD discs with disc protection and region code
  ☉ Convert DVD to MP4, MKV, AVI, MOV, FLV, and other 180+ HD/SD formats
  ☉ Convert DVD main movie to videos for space saving
  ☉ Convert 2D DVD movies to 3D movies with 6 different 3D effects
  ☉ Fast conversion with NVIDIA CUDA, AMD APP and Intel Quick Sync acceleration technologies

This software has many more features, which you can learn about form the product page. Whether you are using Windows or macOS, the software is available for both platforms. Once you have downloaded this software, follow the steps below for using it;

Step 1: Load the source DVD disc

Insert your DVD disc into your disc drive, then launch Leawo Prof. Media. Open the “Convert” module, and then click the 'Add UHD/Blu-ray/DVD' button on the main interface.

Step 2: Select the output format

Click the drop-down list next to the “Add Photo” button.Select“Change” to enter the Profile settings panel where you can choose the output format from the“Format” group, in this case MP4 video.

Note: You can click the same drop-down list and click the 'Edit' button to adjust the video and audio parameters of the output files. They include video and audio codec, bit rate, aspect ratio, frame rate, channel, etc.

Step 3: Start ripping your DVDs

Click the green “Convert” button and then set the output directory to save the final converted DVD movies in the “Save to” box. Click the button again and the ripping should start. The ripped videos will be saved onto your hard drive in the format you chose.

Despite the illusion that streaming services are taking over the way people consume video content, there is still a large population searching for the best free DVD copy software, with an aim to digitize their collections over the years or make replications with a disc-to-disc copy.

There are many tools on the market that helps you to pull media content from a disc to a computer or a blank disc. If you got a shelf full of old DVDs, you will also need to check whether the copier can scan and read content from scratched or damaged discs. Free tools offer you basic options to convert DVDs into digital format, and paid tools may add extra features for tricky scenarios. For instance, VLC cannot play non-UDF DVD because the disc is mastered using an older file system. Handling nuances as such is the case for the best DVD copy software that keeps updating its algorithm to help DVD collectors.

Before you get started to use one of the following DVD copiers, make sure you own the DVD and Blu-ray discs, and comply with the local copyright law.

1. VideoProc Converter

Available for: Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7 Mac OS X 10.6 and later

If you have damaged or scratched DVDs, discs with regional locks, 99-title DVDs, copy-protected discs, or old DVDs that are mastered with a file system that other software cannot handle, VideoProc Converter will be your lifesaver. It is a lightweight and powerful video processing tool packed with DVD copy utilities. Thanks to the advanced auto-detect mechanism, VideoProc Converter can fix the bad sector and read the broken sector in your old DVD, making a replication without error.

You can copy DVD to MP4, MKV, and other popular formats, create ISO images, VIDEO_TS folders for burning, or backup the DVD to a hard drive. While retaining 1:1 original quality, the option is also highly customizable: you can digitize the DVD with all the content and structure preserved, including main movie, hidden track, deleted track, subtitles, menu, trailers, and behind-the-scenes bonus for movie buffs; or select titles and chapters, or extract audio only.

Developed by Digiarty Software Inc., a global leader with 15 years of experience in DVD ripping, DVD copy, video converting, recording and editing, VideoProc Converter inherits the cut-edge tech to deal with discs of all sorts.

It helps you to bypass various kinds of protections, including but not limited to Disney's Fake option, X-project, CSS, UOPs, APS, RCE, Sony ARccOS, Region Code, etc.

There are 6 Modes for DVD Backup:

• Main Movie Content Copy: You can flexibly select video tracks and audio tracks, choose whatever you want to digitize.
• Full Title Copy: Backup all the titles, chapters, subtitles, video trailers, hidden tracks, and audio.
• ISO: 1:1 clone DVD to ISO image, with 100% content and structure preserved.
• VIDEO_TS: 1:1 copy DVD to VIDEO_TS folder, retain full content for DVD burn.
• DVD to MKV: Convert full DVD content to MKV to playback on computers, mobile phones, tablets, TVs, etc.
• DVD to MKV H264: Copy full title to MKV with H264 encoding.

Besides building up your digital library by backing up and copying DVD in Windows 10/8/7, you can also convert DVD to mobile- or console-friendly format, such as MP4, MOV, AVI, etc, and enjoying offline playback on the go.

A bonus feature is the editing tools built-in. You can click on the edit icon to rotate, add subtitles or effects, and cut the video, and then rip the video as you wish.

Pros:

• Read damaged/scratched DVDs, and bypass all kinds of known copy protections.
• Support level-3 hardware acceleration to copy, back up and convert DVD at 1:1 quality.

Cons:

• Cannot work on macOS Leopard or older versions.

Free Download VideoProc Converter to Preserve Your Precious DVD Collections

2. HandBrake

Available for: Windows 10/8/8.1/7 Mac 10.11 and later, Apple Silicon Mac, Linux Ubuntu deb, Flatpak

Developed as a converter, HandBrake can modernize your DVD into computer playable format, namely, MP4, MKV, and WebM. It is not a dedicated DVD copy software for Windows 10 and Mac, but it is free and open source. It works nicely to copy homemade DVDs, as no decryption is required. For DVDs that you bought from stores, such as music videos or movies, Handbrake cannot skip the copy protection to rip the media. If you are tech-savvy, you can install a libdvdcss package from VideoLan. For Windows computers, you will need to download the .dll file and copy it into the installation folder of Handbrake, while for Mac, you may need to use command tools if you are on Yosemite and newer OS.

Handbrake can copy the DVD one title per time. You have to configure HandBrake manually to copy each title and queue them up, so that the program starts ripping one title after another. Let's say there are 57 titles in the DVD, you will have to configure and queue the episode 57 times before starting to copy the DVD to the computer.

Pros:

• Free and open-source software for occasional users.
• Copy DVD to a hard drive in MP4, WebM, and MKV.

Cons:

• Cannot create ISO image or VIDEO_TS folder
• Occasional errors crop up, such as audio missing; ripped content is fuzzy and pixilated.

3. MakeMKV

Available for: Windows 10/8/7, Mac, and Linux

MakeMKV does what its name suggests. It simply copies the video stream from the DVD and puts it into the MKV container. No transcoding is involved in the process. You can think of a DVD as a house, storing furniture and other stuff. MakeMKV just moves those furniture and other things to another house, the MKV (Matroska) container.

It can read DVD and Blu-ray discs, and for those copy-protected discs such as AACS and BD+, MakeMKV can remove the copy protection.

Pros:

• Relatively fast since it only repackages the stream to MKV, and no re-encoding is involved.
• The developer runs an active forum with helpful guides and timely responses for bugs.

Cons:

• MakeMKV is free in the beta version. You have to frequently find the license key in the forum and update your registration status.
• If you want other formats, such as MP4 (most compatible for various scenarios) or MOV (for Apple Devices), MakeMKV alone is not enough. You will need a video converter to transcode the MKV.

4. WinX DVD Copy Pro

Available for: Windows 10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP/2003/2000

WinX DVD Copy Pro is one of the most popular DVD copy software on the market. It supports DVD clone, DVD to MPEG 2, VIDEO_TS folder, ISO file, and disc-to-disc copy. One feature that sets it apart from its competitors is the ISO mounter, which allows you to mount ISO image to a virtual drive, which performs in the same way you play the DVD on a DVD player, only that you are watching the DVD digitally on a computer, with all the content and menu preserved. If you use a remote controller to navigate through the menu of the DVD, now you can use mouse clicks on the mounted ISO. You can also extract video or audio streams flexibly.

Once you insert the disc into the DVD driver, you can select how many sectors to read per time. For copy restriction discs, you can tick the box to remove region code, CSS, UCPS, or Disney's Fake. The program allows you to copy 15 minutes of the content for free.

Pros:

• Keep an exact replication off the DVD and CD.
• Removes all kinds of known copy restrictions in the market.

Cons:

• No option to compress video so as to burn DVD9 content to DVD5.

5. IQmango DVD Copy Software

Available for: Windows 8/7/XP/Vista/2003

IQmango is a piece of lightweight DVD copy software for Windows with a simple interface. It supports lossless DVD content copying, with customizable options to choose which titles to clone. There is also a compressor built-in, helping you to squeeze the content copied from a DVD and make it fit in a smaller disc. But since it needs to reduce the file size, inevitably, there will be quality loss.

Note that the IQmango DVD Copy Software and IQmango DVD Ripper refer to the same product. Probably due to their marketing strategy, IQmango sets up two product pages. In fact, you will be downloading the identical EXE file for installation.

Pros:

Free Dvd Burning Software Mac No Watermark

• Support backup and burn the disc, thus making it possible for disc-to-disc copying.
• Option to remove restrictions from Blu-ray MKB61 and MKB62.

Cons:

• Cannot burning data (not video streams) to DVD.
• Cannot split DVD or copy DVD 9 to 2 pieces of DVD 5.

6. DVD Cloner

Available for: Windows 10/8.1/8/7, Mac OS 10.10 or later versions

DVD Cloner has been around for nearly two decades, and it is a reliable DVD copying software on the market. Beginner or Pro, you shall find DVD Cloner satisfy your requirement in a high-quality way. There are an Express mode and an Expert mode to choose from. For general tasks such as copy everything from DVD to another empty disc, the Express mode serves you well. If you have two DVD drives, the copying process will be done automatically. Alternatively, you can create MKV from DVD in 1-click. The Expert Mode allows more customizability. You can select titles to copy, and leave out all the redundancies.

An interesting feature you can avail of DVD Cloner is its ability to combine multiple DVDs into one, be it Blu-ray (BD-R/RE) or dual-layer DVD (DVD±R9).

The free version only allows you to copy one DVD for free, so that you can check how the software performs before upgrading to the premium version.

Pros:

Best Dvd Maker For Mac

• It is pricy for occasional users.
• The feature to compress DVD 9 to one blank DVD 5 disc could be problematic, since DVD 9 is about two times the size of the DVD5.

Cons:

• Option to copy multi-channel audio including DTS and Dobly digital 5.1.

7. DVDFab Free HD Decrypter

Available for: Windows 10/8.1/8/7 MacOS 10.10-10.15

DVDFab Free HD Decrypter is the free and feature-limited version of DVDFab DVD Copy software. The main difference lies in the ability to remove copy protections. Free HD Decrypter struggles with newer copy protection techs, and can only handle DVDs protected with old schemes.

It offers two modes to copy DVD: full disc and main movie. However, you cannot copy DVD 9 to two pieces of DVD5 discs, as the free version isn't baked with a splitting feature. You can use this freeware to digitize DVD to MKV or MP4, but note that if the DVD contains multiple VTS protections, or if the DVD is a Blu-ray issued before 2018, this decrypter will fail you.

Pros:

• Free to use, offers basic DVD copy mode.
• Support copy DVD to ISO and Video_TS folder.

Cons:

• Won't support H265/HEVC or UHD 4K videos for MKV copying.
• No option to customize what content, titles, or chapters to copy.

8. WonderFox Free DVD Ripper Speedy

Available for: Windows 10/8.1/8/7

If you are looking for DVD copy software to transfer content from DVD to hard disc drive, WonderFox provides an easy solution. It assists you to convert DVDs into digital formats such as MP4, MKV, and AVI. The free version allows you to rip no more than 15 minutes for each movie, and you can choose between PAL and NTFS modes for movies from different regions.

For users with the upgraded license, you can batch copy movies in 1:1 quality, provided that your driver supports multiple discs. Another nice feature is the editing kit, with which you can add effects to the video, or rotate sideways video after copying from DVDs. One thing to notice is, during our test, it takes a considerable amount of computational resources, which might affect how your machine performs. You can turn off other programs while using WonderFox.

Pros:

• Bypass erroneous data and scan scratched DVDs.
• Skip protection schemes such as Sony ARccOS, Disney X-project, CSS, Cinavia, etc.

Cons:

• Doesn't support disc-to-disc copy since there is no DVD burning feature.
• Extracting multilingual DVD can be problematic sometimes.

9. ImgBurn

Available for: Windows 10/8.1/8/7

ImgBurn is a handy free DVD copy and burning tool when physical media was king. It supports major brands of the DVD blank disk and can help you copy an image file to a disk. No matter you have ISO, DVD, CCD, DI, NDS, NRG, or PDI, you can easily write it to a physical disk. VIDEO_TS folder and BDAV / BDMV folder are also supported to write content into DVD and Blu-ray disks. ImgBurn also works the other way around: you can create an ISO image from the DVD. You can choose a mode from the home screen, start digitalizing or burning a DVD. For a new task, you can press Ctrl+shift+P to go back to this Easy Mode Picker (home screen).

Pros:

• Option to create Blu-ray disk via a virtual device.
• You can queue multiple images for batch task, and there will be a Log window showing what's in progress.

Cons:

• It hasn't been updated since 2013, and may not be able to cope with some problems.
• You cannot copy DVD into MP4/MKV, or select titles to copy.

Note: Make sure to download the installation file from the official site, and choose Mirror 7 – Provided by ImgBurn to avoid bundleware or adware. The latest version is v2.5.8.0 released in 2013, and the development is halted since then.

10. BurnAware

Available for: Windows 10/8/8.1/7

In DVD to DVD copying, you will need to copy DVD to a computer in the first place, and then burn the digitize files to a blank DVD. BurnAware is here for the second task. Once you prepared the DVD content in the form of ISO image, VIDEO_TS folder, or merely an MKV file, you can use BurnAware to copy the content into a blank disk. Besides movies and home videos, you can write other kinds of data supported by the disk. In that way, you are using the DVD as a backup method for important files. BurnAware can erase content on an already-used DVD, provided the DVD is rewritable (DVD + /- RW).

Besides being a free DVD burner, it also offers you the option to create Audio CDs, MP3 disk, and Blu-ray disk, free of charge.

Pros:

• A clear user interface to navigate through all the features.
• Support Blu-ray disk copy for free, which may be charged in other tools.

Cons:

• No option to extract audio tracks, or extract files from ISO images in the free version.

FAQs

Can Windows 10 Copy a DVD?

Windows 10 can finish part of the task in copying a DVD. The DVD copying is a cover term for several operations. If you are expecting DVD to blank DVD copy, then you need to use DVD copy software listed above to pull content out, store them on a Windows computer (in a format of ISO or VIDEO_TS folder), and then use Window File Explorer or Windows Media Player to burn the files to a blank DVD.

What is the Most Used Free DVD Copying Software?

HandBrake, ImgBurn, and DVDShrink have been around for a long time and have accumulated many users along the way. However, ImgBurn and DVDShrink are obsolete and haven't been updated for many years. HandBrake is more of a converter that has been repurposed to rip DVD into MP4. For advanced features, you can check other copiers listed above.

Disclaimer: We do not advocate copying authorized or protected DVDs for commercial use.