HDR players for 14/16 Macbook Pros

[Menneisyys2]

I've played a little bit with HDR-capable players (note: NOT with all the available ones!) on my 16" M1 Pro MBP's screen to learn a bit more on HDR playback. Attached is a chart with my findings.

All in all,

1, most? all? as HDR advertised "unofficial" MKVs are NOT HDR (while they certainly are 10-bit) and, to my knowledge, can't be played back as such
2, some "official" MKVs (example: the above 31: HEVC 10-bit 23.976fps (in MKV) from https://kodi.wiki/view/Samples ) is, while Infuse detects them as HDR (and accordingly displays the nagging screen), are not HDR. This particular video for example is 8-bit only, while it's listed as 10-bit in the Kodi Wiki.
3, Of the three commercial (and HDR-capable) apps, I myself prefer Optimus Player: it's the cheapest and, which is important for me, is unique in that it's capable of displaying two subtitle tracks at the same time, and those tracks can be bitmap tracks too, not only textual (.srt etc.) ones. This offers an excellent way of both displaying the original English text of a movie and a track in another language, should a word be unknown for me. The most expensive Infuse, at least in these tests, produced the least convincing results as it just couldn't play back the 4k .webm YouTube downloads, unlike the other two players.

NOTE: VLC won't receive true HDR screen support in the foreseeable future (see https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc/-/issues/18618 : "VLC 3 plays HDR content tone-mapped to SDR. Both 3.x and 4.x for macOS currently do not support "native" HDR output on HDR screens .... I am not saying 4.x will not, it just does not at the current state of development.")

 

[venom600]

You listed two HDR players. What's the third? I paid for Infuse and frankly, I'm not all that impressed with HDR on it. All the colors look desaturated when in HDR mode. compared to what I see on youtube in HDR.

 

[Menneisyys2]

You listed two HDR players. What's the third?

See the last three columns of the chart:

Infuse 7.3.3 (only tested in trial mode so I can't comment on the quality of its HDR rendering. I just couldn't bother paying even one month to check out the HDR quality as I wasn't impressed by its .webm / YouTube compatibility at all.)

Movist Pro 2.8.1

Optimus Player 1.4 (12)

" I paid for Infuse and frankly, I'm not all that impressed with HDR on it. All the colors look desaturated when in HDR mode. compared to what I see on youtube in HDR."

Then, it surely isn't playing the footage back properly. The playback should in no way be different (no different tonemapping etc.) from playing back the same footage in a non-HDR-capable player like VLC, "just" the highlights will be WAAAAY brighter, particularly if you turn down the overall screen brightness a bit (to, say, 30%).

Give a try to Optimus Player / Movist Pro with the same footage? (Fortunately, they both support HDR playback in their trial version.) Do they render it properly?

 

[venom600]

I'm seeing VASTLY different results using the same test file that I know is HDR. Top left is Infuse. Top right is Movist. It shows that Infuse is definitely muting the colors pretty dramatically even if the bright and dark areas are what they should be. The bottom left is VLC... and the colors are just way off for that one.

 

[Menneisyys2]

I'm seeing VASTLY different results using the same test file that I know is HDR. Top left is Infuse. Top right is Movist. It shows that Infuse is definitely muting the colors pretty dramatically even if the bright and dark areas are what they should be. The bottom left is VLC... and the colors are just way off for that one. View attachment 1955859

Thanks, found the video ( youtube: nMHakFJ9Q-I ) and downloaded it as .webm. VLC produces exactly the same messed-up color mapping as on your pic. Optimus Player and Movist Pro both produce exactly the same output as the in-browser YouTube player. (On your Movist Pro framegrab, it seems as if Movist Pro had some kind of over-brightness issue. I haven't noticed this in any way - its output is in no way different from that of the Safari YT player / Optimus Player.)

I didn't bother with testing in Infuse as I don't want to pay a pence for something I know I won't use.

edit: typoz only

 

[dylin]

I've heard about this being a good one, but I hardly know anything about HDR.

IINA - The modern media player for macOS

iina.io

Edit: Dont bother with it. There hasn't been an official update in over a year.

 

[Menneisyys2]

I've heard about this being a good one, but I hardly know anything about HDR.

IINA - The modern media player for macOS

iina.io

Edit: Dont bother with it. There hasn't been an official update in over a year.

Quickly tested it: doesn't render the webm files as HDR ones, only as SDR (but at least they do work, unlike with Infuse). That is, no HDR output.

 

[white7561]

Quickly tested it: doesn't render the webm files as HDR ones, only as SDR (but at least they do work, unlike with Infuse). That is, no HDR output.

Infuse Release Notes

Stay up-to-date with news on the latest updates of Infuse.

firecore.com

Try the newest one. They updated it with changes for the HDR .

 

[MK500]

What I have been using is Plex Media Server (free); and then playback in Safari. You might even be able to run the Plex server locally on your MacBook Pro. This works with MKV and all formats. This seems to decode all HDR files in actual HDR; and looks pretty great.

I haven't done a color comparison to see if the grading is correct; but it seems pretty good.

 

[Menneisyys2]

Infuse Release Notes

Stay up-to-date with news on the latest updates of Infuse.

firecore.com

Try the newest one. They updated it with changes for the HDR .

Thanks! Tested it - indeed much better than previously: no problems with the test .webm files any more. It plays them back in exactly the same way (same tonemapping etc.) as Movist / OP; that is, truly HDR playback. I haven't noticed any problems with anything. A screenshot is attached showing it (top right), VLC (top left) and Movist (bottom right).

BTW, I still can't test the true HDR MKVs (as opposed to YouTube .webm downloads, see above) I linked from my chart as playing them requires a subscription. (Why they don't implement some true, time-restricted trial mode NOT requiring any kind of a trial sub?! They only chase away potential customers by not providing a proper trial version, unlike with other multimedia player apps..)

EDIT: plus clarification + attached the previously forgotten pic

 

[white7561]

Thanks! Tested it - indeed much better than previously: no problems with the test .webm files any more. It plays them back in exactly the same way (same tonemapping etc.) as Movist / OP; that is, truly HDR playback. I noticed no problems with anything. A screenshotis attached showing it (top right), VLC (top left) and Movist (bottom right).

I still can't test the true HDR MKVs I linked from my chart as it requires a subscription. (Why they don't implement some true, time-restricted trial mode NOT requiring any kind of a trial sub?! They only chase away potential customers by not providing a proper trial version, unlike with other multimedia player apps..)

Does playing vp9 still use software decoding? Since it seems like the only way to play vp9 with hw decoder is if you use chrome or safari etc in YouTube for example

 

[Menneisyys2]

I'm seeing VASTLY different results using the same test file that I know is HDR. Top left is Infuse. Top right is Movist. It shows that Infuse is definitely muting the colors pretty dramatically even if the bright and dark areas are what they should be. The bottom left is VLC... and the colors are just way off for that one. View attachment 1955859

The just-released Infuse fixed this bug (at least when it plays back .webm containers )

 

[venom600]

The just-released Infuse fixed this bug (at least when it plays back .webm containers )

Not just in WebM. That file I was using is a DolbyVision test video I got directly from Dolby. It looks amazing now in Infuse! I've tried some HDR movies streamed from Plex and they look much better too.

https://developer.dolby.com/tools-media/sample-media/video-streams/dolby-vision-streams/

 

[Menneisyys2]

Not just in WebM. That file I was using is a DolbyVision test video I got directly from Dolby. It looks amazing now in Infuse! I've tried some HDR movies streamed from Plex and they look much better too.

https://developer.dolby.com/tools-media/sample-media/video-streams/dolby-vision-streams/

wow, thanks for the links!

 

[mi7chy]

Is screen shot stripping HDR? Playing YouTube HDR and yt-dlp downloaded HDR are more orange but screen capture is more yellow like some of the ones in this thread. Which is the real HDR, orange, yellow, beer but definitely not pink?

 

[lcubed]

have you tried playing back using final cut pro?
that should definitely handle HDR with a compatible HDR display

 

[Menneisyys2]

Is screen shot stripping HDR? Playing YouTube HDR and yt-dlp downloaded HDR are more orange but screen capture is more yellow like some of the ones in this thread. Which is the real HDR, orange, yellow, beer but definitely not pink?

Between orange and yellow. The screenshots don't give a proper representation of how much brighter they are as the shots are SDR. I'll try making a proper HDR camera shot of them.

 

[Menneisyys2]

have you tried playing back using final cut pro?
that should definitely handle HDR with a compatible HDR display

Tried directly importing "iOS_P5_GlassBlowing2_3840x2160@59.94fps_15200kbps" (from the above link) with the current FCPX version: "Unsupported file type". And the import preview strip also shows the colors messed-up, just like VLC:

 

[timmah339]

Have you tried iina-plus? It's a fork of IINA with "proper" HDR support. It seems to be a little brighter than the latest Infuse release (with almost imperceptible loss of detail in blacks) with the aforementioned webm sample.

 

[Menneisyys2]

Have you tried iina-plus? It's a fork of IINA with "proper" HDR support. It seems to be a little brighter than the latest Infuse release (with almost imperceptible loss of detail in blacks) with the aforementioned webm sample.

Yup, seems to work great here too.

 

[Landing]

I am using since few years Optimus Player from an ex google engineer. what do you think about it? He didn't yet update it for apple M1. It's a pretty clean and simple player and it's what I like about it. it's easily in my top 10 app I need on my Mac. But I guess it doesn't support DV yet. I am curious to know what do you think about the picture quality and colors from this app in HDR

Optimus Player

Optimus Player is the best app for playing audiovisual content on the Mac. Major features include color accuracy, AirPlay 2 audio, and dual subtitles.

www.optimusplayer.com

 

[Minestrone]

Hello everyone !

README: Document new CI · CarterLi/iina@1cc4fb4

The modern video player for macOS with additional features and bug fixes. - README: Document new CI · CarterLi/iina@1cc4fb4

github.com

Download under Artifacts. Enjoy HDR !
IINA, Giants, thank you.

 

[Matck06]

The best solution remains for me to use the SUBLER software and convert your mkv file to mp4 in a few seconds, thanks to this you will be able to enjoy the quicktime in HDR with low power consumption and impeccable colors and shadows

edit: infuse 7.3.5 does a great job however the battery consumption is higher than QuickTime

 

[Matck06]

Hello, I have a problem I can't convert some MKV to MP4 using Subler software. it gives me an empty MP4 file, do you have any idea what to do?

 

[topcat001]

I find ffmpeg to be very capable for this kind of work. Simple remuxing is nearly instantaneous. The basic utility is commandline based though and extremely powerful in this mode. So, might not be everyone's cup of tea. Homebrew has it. Just a suggestion for Unix people (nerds? ).