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

[Dochartaigh]

I need a standalone video player to play HDR videos in all the common formats (NOT in a browser fyi, that doesn't work for my workflow). Need simple options like adjusting the subtitle font size so it doesn't take up a the lower ~20%! of the screen, and simple quality-of-life things like keyboard shortcuts to skip forward/backwards quickly and raise/lower volume.

I don't think the above by ANY stretch of the imagination is crazy things to ask for in a video player... but why is it 2023 and NOTHING like this exists?

I went through all the past topics like these (examples) from 2020, 2021, 2022, and tried every single one they mentioned, and all failed (and failed pretty spectacularly). Am I missing something? What gives? Why is this so difficult to find? PLEASE tell me what I'm missing here!!!



FYI, there IS a couple things I won't do, or deal with (which likewise I think are no-brainer things):

• I am NOT converting 4,000+ movies/tv-shows to Quicktime format (not even a container change/edit re: Subler)
• I will NOT pay a subscription - totally happy to pay $10 or whatever for a license

What I've tried to far, and ALL failed on multiple accounts:

Quicktime: plays no joke, about 1% of my video formats. Nearly ZERO options (including subtitle size). And does it really need a friggin script?? to do idiotically simple things like skip forward XX seconds with the keyboard? Epic fail Apple...

IINA: bricked in Ventura, tons of posts on their Github about it.

Optimus: Won't play many of my HDR (even regular non-hdr) videos which ALL others play. NO options for anything, like nada (not even subtitles). No volume shortcut? Also got my FIRST EVER "your system has run out of app memory" error – used entire 40GB swap disk on my Mac mini M2 Pro (300+Gb left on my SSD btw)... AND a movie wasn't even loaded! (I had closed the movie...).

Movist: doesn't recognize my 5.1 surround sound system which EVERY other player does. OSD says my 4K videos are outputting in 1080p? 'actual size' setting zooms my 4k media on my 4K TV to like 130%. "user size" set to 4K screwing things up/not working? Sure, I could google all these things but you know what's weird? ZERO info online – no google results, no help file, their FAQ is useless... no email back from developer yet...

OTHER OPTIONS mentioned in those topics I linked to (all have dealbreakers unfortunately):
VLC: been using FOREVER and love, but no HDR
Elmedia: no HDR
MPV: no HDR and/or faked?
Infuse: subscription service only - no.


Anything I missed? Anything I can true? Any insight on why the hell this is so hard to find? Basically all I need is VLC media player which I've been using for 10+ years...but a version that does HDR (which they do NOT offer for Mac, only Windows).

 

[NikoBeaR]

1. Infuse is the best for HDR. There is a non-subscription license, but it's obscenely expensive ($95 USD for lifetime IIRC). You can buy some iTunes gift cards for 15% off one in a while to make this a little cheaper.

It was very painful to pay that price, but for the iOS and AppleTV apps it was worth it. I actually prefer IINA and Movist Pro to Infuse.

2. Latest IINA is working in Ventura 13.2.1 here
3. Tried Movist *PRO*?

 

[HDFan]

Infuse, IINA, Plex all work for me on a Studio running Ventura 13.2.1. Lifetime licenses available. $10 licenses for non-trivial apps are becoming extinct. Developers need to eat.

 

[PineappleCake]

Infuse: subscription service only - no.

Infuse also has a lifetime license. It's expensive but the app is great. After sales support is good too.

and HDR works on it properly. I use it on my Macbook Pro and Apple TV 4K.
(Yes, I got the lifetime license)

 

[PineappleCake]

I actually prefer IINA and Movist Pro to Infuse.

Infuse got much better recently and HDR works on Infuse. IINA is ok for a free app but buggy.

Infuse is easy to share your movies on iPad, Mac and Apple TV.

 

[Dochartaigh]

1. Infuse is the best for HDR. There is a non-subscription license, but it's obscenely expensive ($95 USD for lifetime IIRC). You can buy some iTunes gift cards for 15% off one in a while to make this a little cheaper.

It was very painful to pay that price, but for the iOS and AppleTV apps it was worth it. I actually prefer IINA and Movist Pro to Infuse.

2. Latest IINA is working in Ventura 13.2.1 here
3. Tried Movist *PRO*?

And f... Chrome crashed and I'm not typing out all this crap again. Sigh...

Short version: IINA still sucks. Tried on 2x 2023 Mac mini's on Ventura 13.2.1. Same issue these 5x people have open tickets on their Github for (image is fine when NOT full-screen... gets SUPER dark when full-screen).

And yes, Movist Pro. STILL no reply from them either about surround sound not working - like 10+ days later. Made a post on Reddit the other day as well - no replies.



Short version for Infuse: I swallowed my pride and paid to test it (as there's not even a free trial...). Long story short, it lacks a ****-ton of features I kinda HAVE to have when running a large torrented (of movies I own though) library. I can't adjust subtitles how I like them, no option to change sub delay. No option to chance audio delay. No ability to even see the details of a movie. Can't change the forward/backward default of 15 seconds so literally adds ~10 minutes to the movies I watch (I always need to go back like a mere 2 seconds to hear something I missed... not have to waste 6 times as much time for that...).

I forget what else I typed up (I mean complained about lol), but I'll probably stick with this one for the time being, while I keep hoping for a mac-hdr-compatible version of VLC...

**EDIT 2-21-2023: I only have ~25x 4K HDR test rips I'm playing around with, and 2-3 will NOT load external .SRT subtitles (they don't even show up in the subtitle list)... anybody else experience this? Those SAME EXACT subs work in every other player I mentioned in this topic... I HAVE to use external subs, because you can't change the HUGE font size Infuse seems to default to when the subs are internally part of the .MKV or whatever container video file.

 

[HDFan]

Short version for Infuse:

Same problems with Plex? It is more configurable than Infuse.

 

[Dochartaigh]

Same problems with Plex? It is more configurable than Infuse.

It actually kinda doesn't... at least for the stuff I care about, like changing how many seconds forward/backwards it goes. You're stuck at 10/30 seconds which just doesn't work for me (constantly missing things and having to move around in movies - specifically to hear stuff! -- even with subs on).

Infuse can't change that either though...

You did remind me that Plex has a standalone player though - I previously discounted it as an option because I HAVE to have standalone (not through a browser), and I've been using it browser based forever (whenever I tried the standalone, several times on the past, it was just slow and buggy). I'll give it another try though - maybe it'll play nice with this silicone based mac (but we'll see).

 

[johnkree]

Quicktime: plays no joke, about 1% of my video formats. Nearly ZERO options (including subtitle size). And does it really need a friggin script?? to do idiotically simple things like skip forward XX seconds with the keyboard? Epic fail Apple...

Quicktime is a videoplayer by Apple tailored for Apple stuff. It was this way like forever. Complaining about it not playing your special video formats.

IINA: bricked in Ventura, tons of posts on their Github about it.

IINA is running fine. I'm on Ventura, everything is working. Maybe uninstall and install it again.

VLC: been using FOREVER and love, but no HDR

VLC has HDR, but you have to meet the requirements.

Infuse: subscription service only - no.

IINA is ok for a free app but buggy.

I'm having trouble understanding why you believe you're entitled to a free app that caters to your specific needs. You seem to be dissatisfied with paying for additional features that aren't available on free apps in the way that you prefer. Have you considered creating your own app to gain a better understanding of the challenges involved in programming? Alternatively, you could contribute your time and expertise to the IINA team to assist them with their development efforts.

 

[rhett7660]

@johnkree You beat me to the punch... Was going to say the same thing.


Like others have mentioned Infuse has a lifetime license, which I feel, for what you get and never having to worry about subscriptions etc is priced accordingly especially with everything you play it on.

I think at this point, maybe it is time to pick up a coding book and start learning or seeking out someone from the above groups and make the requests. I would even go so far as to say you will help via your funding to get some of the items you are looking to have on a video player.

 

[Dochartaigh]

Quicktime is a videoplayer by Apple tailored for Apple stuff. It was this way like forever. Complaining about it not playing your special video formats.

Actually it'll play pretty much everything out there, AND in HDR... IF it's re-containered with a program like Subler... which just isn't feasible for the library of my size to be converted (and just not worth it since Quicktime is such a feature-lacking program). Also, these aren't 'special video formats' - they're industry standard H.264 and H.265 encoding - everybody has used it for a very long time (264 is even even the default for Adobe Premiere Pro...).

IINA is running fine. I'm on Ventura, everything is working. Maybe uninstall and install it again.

I'm on my SECOND 2023 Mac mini M2 Pro running 13.2.1... still gives issues. Please see the linked Github above with a plethora of people with my SAME exact issue... it's a thing, no doubt.

VLC has HDR, but you have to meet the requirements.

Where do you get this version? And are you talking about the Windows-ONLY version? All my research points to VLC not supporting (and furthermore NOT planning on supporting) HDR playback on Mac.

I'm having trouble understanding why you believe you're entitled to a free app that caters to your specific needs. You seem to be dissatisfied with paying for additional features that aren't available on free apps in the way that you prefer. Have you considered creating your own app to gain a better understanding of the challenges involved in programming? Alternatively, you could contribute your time and expertise to the IINA team to assist them with their development efforts.

I take it you missed where I said, verbatim, "totally happy to pay $10 or whatever for a license" -- which is LESS than Optimus and IINA charge, fyi - I'm simply against subscription services in perpetuity.

 

[tornado99]

Have you tried the nightly version of IINA and VLC 4?

For VLC you need to

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine [path to vlc]

and then you get this to play with!

 

[spamsungh8t3r]

I need a standalone video player to play HDR videos in all the common formats (NOT in a browser fyi, that doesn't work for my workflow). Need simple options like adjusting the subtitle font size so it doesn't take up a the lower ~20%! of the screen, and simple quality-of-life things like keyboard shortcuts to skip forward/backwards quickly and raise/lower volume.

I don't think the above by ANY stretch of the imagination is crazy things to ask for in a video player... but why is it 2023 and NOTHING like this exists?

I went through all the past topics like these (examples) from 2020, 2021, 2022, and tried every single one they mentioned, and all failed (and failed pretty spectacularly). Am I missing something? What gives? Why is this so difficult to find? PLEASE tell me what I'm missing here!!!



FYI, there IS a couple things I won't do, or deal with (which likewise I think are no-brainer things):

• I am NOT converting 4,000+ movies/tv-shows to Quicktime format (not even a container change/edit re: Subler)
• I will NOT pay a subscription - totally happy to pay $10 or whatever for a license

What I've tried to far, and ALL failed on multiple accounts:

Quicktime: plays no joke, about 1% of my video formats. Nearly ZERO options (including subtitle size). And does it really need a friggin script?? to do idiotically simple things like skip forward XX seconds with the keyboard? Epic fail Apple...

IINA: bricked in Ventura, tons of posts on their Github about it.

Optimus: Won't play many of my HDR (even regular non-hdr) videos which ALL others play. NO options for anything, like nada (not even subtitles). No volume shortcut? Also got my FIRST EVER "your system has run out of app memory" error – used entire 40GB swap disk on my Mac mini M2 Pro (300+Gb left on my SSD btw)... AND a movie wasn't even loaded! (I had closed the movie...).

Movist: doesn't recognize my 5.1 surround sound system which EVERY other player does. OSD says my 4K videos are outputting in 1080p? 'actual size' setting zooms my 4k media on my 4K TV to like 130%. "user size" set to 4K screwing things up/not working? Sure, I could google all these things but you know what's weird? ZERO info online – no google results, no help file, their FAQ is useless... no email back from developer yet...

OTHER OPTIONS mentioned in those topics I linked to (all have dealbreakers unfortunately):
VLC: been using FOREVER and love, but no HDR
Elmedia: no HDR
MPV: no HDR and/or faked?
Infuse: subscription service only - no.


Anything I missed? Anything I can true? Any insight on why the hell this is so hard to find? Basically all I need is VLC media player which I've been using for 10+ years...but a version that does HDR (which they do NOT offer for Mac, only Windows).

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

 

[tornado99]

I've found a more advanced method of HDR that none of the options in this thread mention. Dynamic HDR. It analysis every single frame rather than the HDR peak.

You need to install this repo into your mpv .config folder in your home directory (show hidden folders)

GitHub - natural-harmonia-gropius/hdr-toys at 6de021848bdb9da87a6f9cc451d05c8f3155454e

Componentized Rec.2100 to Rec.709 conversion shader for mpv-player, featuring dynamic curves and a uniform color space. - GitHub - natural-harmonia-gropius/hdr-toys at 6de021848bdb9da87a6f9cc451d05...

github.com

And then add this to your IINA config (I'm using nightly IINA but should work with stable)

Works great on testing so far, and you don't have the problem of endlessly tweaking your reinhard/hable parameters to avoid movies being too dark or too clipped.

 

[bogdanw]

IINA 1.3.2
"Added HDR tone mapping settings
Fixed incorrect rendering of some HDR videos"
https://github.com/iina/iina/releases
https://iina.io/release-note/1.3.2.html

 

[bogdanw]

mpv v0.36.0
"vo_gpu_next: support mapping HDR10+ dynamic metadata
vo_gpu_next: add --target-contrast and --hdr-contrast-recovery/smoothness
stats.lua: display HDR peak in nits
zimg: fix broken sig_peak (HDR) handling"
https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/releases
https://laboratory.stolendata.net/~djinn/mpv_osx/

 

[wilee]

IINA has tons of algorithms without any adequate explanation how to select them, it produces bright picture on MBP but highlights very very often clip, I use maximum display brightness for movies always

If you can recommend how to setup IINA or VLC (4?) for adequate HDR playback on MBP16 - that would be just wonderful

I do not trust paid players mostly because of lack of support

 

[acorntoy]

Latest VLC is working great for me :/

Played a local Glass Onion 4K HDR file (over HDMI) on a 2020 Vizio Quantum X two days ago (from a M1 Pro MBP). Movist/Apple tv downgraded to SDR but VLC played the HDR version perfectly; major improvement.

 

[wilee]

By latest you mean 4?

 

[acorntoy]

By latest you mean 4?

VLC 3.0.18 runs all my HDR files perfectly. On the computer and when connected to a tv.

 

[kvsanal78]

Was testing movie file in IINA and VLC. The darker one is IINA. Which one is actually rendering the video properly ? Also in IINA the HDR button seems disabled, not able to turn it on even though the video that i downloaded says it's HDR.

M2 pro Macbook pro.

 

[kvsanal78]

Another file with HDR. This time INNA HDR option was turned on, while VLC looks darker. How do i turn it on in VLC ?
M2 pro Macbook pro.

 

[tornado99]

As I said above none of the normal methods in IINA, VLC etc. will work perfectly for every movie. They set an average compromise value. Some movies/scenes will still be too dark or too bright. The only technique that works for everything is Dynamic HDR. Found in certain expensive TVs, and in the IINA shaders add-on I screenshotted.

 

[Nermal]

Was testing movie file in IINA and VLC. The darker one is IINA. Which one is actually rendering the video properly ? Also in IINA the HDR button seems disabled, not able to turn it on even though the video that i downloaded says it's HDR.

M2 pro Macbook pro.

IINA has always played videos too dark on my machine, whether HDR or not. I've tried searching for this in the past, but haven't been able to find anyone talking about it.

Edit: Not necessarily correct. I've made another post later in this thread.

 

[HDR]

I've found a more advanced method of HDR that none of the options in this thread mention. Dynamic HDR. It analysis every single frame rather than the HDR peak.

You need to install this repo into your mpv .config folder in your home directory (show hidden folders)

GitHub - natural-harmonia-gropius/hdr-toys at 6de021848bdb9da87a6f9cc451d05c8f3155454e

Componentized Rec.2100 to Rec.709 conversion shader for mpv-player, featuring dynamic curves and a uniform color space. - GitHub - natural-harmonia-gropius/hdr-toys at 6de021848bdb9da87a6f9cc451d05...

github.com

And then add this to your IINA config (I'm using nightly IINA but should work with stable)

View attachment 2223287
Works great on testing so far, and you don't have the problem of endlessly tweaking your reinhard/hable parameters to avoid movies being too dark or too clipped.

Hi,
Disclaimer: I'm hardly a Mac expert, but tried to follow your guide, with no success IINA still displays the content in this green-purple hue.

I'm using the regular IINA (not nightly version) - do you think it makes a difference? (although you wrote it shouldn't)

I downloaded the .zip file from the GitHub link you shared, then created a ".config" file (it wasn't there), on \Users\<my laptop's name>\, then created "mpv" folder inside, then created "shaders" folders and inside I pasted the entire .zip (but unzipped of course) file downloaded from GitHub. Finally, I referenced to the dynamic.glsl file, on the Advanced setting window in IINA, as you showed.
Anything I did wrong, or missed? I have MacBook Pro 16", 2019 with Ventura 13.4.1.