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Can the 2017 imac output HDR?
- Thread starter iemcj
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The 2019 iMac is the only iMac that will support 4K HDR, Apple is not going to support HDR 4K Content on older iMacs unfortunately due to a hardware limitation.
100% Wrong.
It works on a 2017 right now — but only over Windows/BootCamp at the moment. There is no technical reason why it can’t.
The Apple announcement said that everything released in 2018 will. It didn’t say that the 2017 iMac wont.
You are the same person that was spreading false information about the 2TB Fusion Drive in the 2019 iMac having a 32GB SSD (When in reality it has a 128GB SSD).
And you are the one that's 100% wrong here once again, according to the iFixit iMac Pro tear down the iMac Pro uses the Intel JHL6540 Thunderbolt controller, that is a Display Port 1.2 chip and that answers the question of why it will not allow the 4K features. 2018 Macs started getting Intels Titan Ridge TB3 controller which included DP 1.4. Prior to that the TB3 controller used DP 1.2 which doesn't have support for HDCP 2.2, the requirement for 4k content.
Just because you were able to "hack" your way into using a certain feature by using Windows doesn't suddenly turn it into a supported feature, It certainly isn't supported by Apple.
OP : Read this thread if you want to know more about why the 2017 iMac is not supported. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/no-4k-dolby-vision-hdr-support-on-imac-pro.2183921/
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Why do you want to use a video (HDMI, DisplayPort, whatnot) connector from your Mac to your 4K TV?
You could just set up a DLNA server and use your Mac to serve files to your 4K TV and let it decode and render the video by itself. All necessary hardware is in place inside that TV already.
You make the argument that it is an absolute hardware limitation. Fine. But then you also acknowledge that Windows somehow magically hacks around this. Clearly it is not an absolute hardware limitation.
Hacking, by definition; is performing an action to workaround and gain access to a feature (in this case) that isn't officially supported or shouldn’t be accessible to on the main operation system on which the Mac is running by default (MacOS). The HDCP limitation is there for a reason.
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OK. I understand what hacking is. Please explain to me how someone creates a work around (hack) to a physical hardware limitation, that you insist is there, without physically changing the hardware. If you are trying to argue that Apple has chosen to not support 4K HDR in this case, I have no problem agreeing with your position. Just don't take the position that is is a physical hardware limitation.
You are 100% correct, that streaming content that is HDCP protected will probably not play, like the stuff that will be available through iTunes. But not all 4K HDR content is copy protected, example if I shoot my own 4k HDR with a prosumer video camera or if I download a 4k content that has had the HDCP protection stripped. Is there a technical reason why that can't play?