It's 2023... still NO WORKING HDR video players? (IINA, Optimus, Movist ALL FAIL!)

[ikir]

New app: Front Row - Play HDR videos & spatial audio on Mac natively"
https://github.com/godly-devotion/FrontRow
"Compatibility
HDR video compatible Macs and/or spatial audio compatible devices
Apple Silicon (M1 and later)
macOS Sonoma 14.2 and later"

iina is better

 

[pparanoidd]

A quick updated comparison on my M3 pro:

• VLC 3.0.20 STILL couldn't do HDR or Dolby Vision and looked terrible
• Movist Pro handled HDR and DV very well, the UI isn't so pretty but it makes up for it with customisation
• Infuse did HDR very well and I slightly prefer the colours to any other app but I have a bug and so do a few others it seems where DV videos flash/flicker every now and then making it unwatchable (thread). Best UI out of the bunch but AWFUL customisation. Can't even change something simple like how far it goes forward when you click and arrow key. Deal breaker.
• Didn't try IINA, has very mixed reviews and no major releases for months
• Didn't try optimus player, seems good but also no updates in ages

Going forward Movist Pro is my main video player, coming from MPV on windows I need the customisation it provides. The price isn't too bad and it isn't an expensive subscription like Infuse.

Update 4 months later: Just switched from Movist Pro to IINA, seems to be the best now. Does everything Movist did but with the added insane flexibility and customisability of mpv under the hood all while looking much more apple-esque. And with IINA looking to add Spatial Audio support in the coming weeks, my video/music player hunt will come to a close. What a time to be alive

 

[bogdanw]

Front Row Video Player by Joshua Park is now available in the App Store https://apps.apple.com/app/id6480318506
(Apple Silicon M1 and later; macOS Sonoma 14.2 and later)

 

[mrmacdi]

Optimus is a limited player, however it does play videos in HDR just fine. Dolby Vision mp4, HLG mkv are what I've tested

Dolby Vision mp4 is not working in the latest Optimus Player 1.5.

 

[bogdanw]

Dolby Vision mp4 is not working in the latest Optimus Player 1.5.

Link for the previous version Optimus Player 1.4.dmg https://storage.googleapis.com/download.optimusplayer.com/Optimus Player 1.4.dmg
Additional discussion about MacOS Dolby Vision support
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-dolby-vision-support.2376640/

 

[singularity0993]

Try SenPlayer https://apps.apple.com/us/app/senplayer-hdr-media-player/id6443975850

It works with Dolby Vision even in the free version. And no subscription for Pro.

 

[mrmacdi]

Link for the previous version Optimus Player 1.4.dmg https://storage.googleapis.com/download.optimusplayer.com/Optimus Player 1.4.dmg
Additional discussion about MacOS Dolby Vision support
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-dolby-vision-support.2376640/

Thanks, but I've already deleted Optimus Player. It also failed to play HDR10, so no more chances for it.

 

[bogdanw]

mpv 0.40.0
"HDR is now natively supported when using direct rendering (DRM),
as well as dmabuf-wayland on Linux
context_drm_gl: add support for HDR metadata
vo_gpu_next: add chroma location and HDR metadata to shader parameters"
https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/releases
macOS build https://nightly.link/mpv-player/mpv/workflows/build/master

 

[mrmacdi]

mpv 0.40.0
"HDR is now natively supported when using direct rendering (DRM),
as well as dmabuf-wayland on Linux
context_drm_gl: add support for HDR metadata
vo_gpu_next: add chroma location and HDR metadata to shader parameters"
https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/releases
macOS build https://nightly.link/mpv-player/mpv/workflows/build/master

The issue with mpv for macOS is its huge CPU usage, which is no go when on battery.

 

[bogdanw]

The issue with mpv for macOS is its huge CPU usage, which is no go when on battery.

Have you enabled hardware video decoding?
https://mpv.io/manual/stable/#video
--hwdec=auto in ~/.config/mpv/mpv.conf

 

[mrmacdi]

context_drm_gl: add support for HDR metadata
vo_gpu_next: add chroma location and HDR metadata to shader parameters"

Oh, it's weird that in 2025 we should use conf file for the video player, instead of a simple gui config with switches. Being a developer myself it's extremely easy to implement.

BTW --hwdec=auto fixes high CPU usage, but it's still too high compared to other players on my MBP Pro with M Pro.
Spent 30 mins to add --target-colorspace-hint=auto as suggest for HDR, but not working now: mpv silently stops working when I try to open HDR movie: no errors, no dialogs, just sits in RAM wasting CPU cycles :/

 

[leifp]

I would love an update on the state of this tech.

In the past I’ve just used VLC and put my head in the sand but now I have a situation where I would want two things: to watch 4K HDR content on my Mac and/or to stream it to my shiny new TV with an AppleTV attached.