Plex for Mac doesn't support HDR?

Plex Players Desktop Players
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Server Version#: 1.21.1.3830
Player Version#: Plex for Mac 1.25.0.1511-47afccd4

I bought the new 4K UHD Lord of the Rings set recently and have been having a hell of a time getting it to look good - everything looks too dark.

I’ve since realised my TV doesn’t support HDR, so fair enough. Time to get a new TV.

But my iMac is from 2020 and supports HDR. Yet when I play the video via the Plex for Mac player, it looks no different than on my TV. I have an older iMac that doesn’t support HDR, and again it looks exactly the same.

However, when I play via QuickTime on the newer iMac, it looks good.

Note - for this testing, I used MakeMKV to extract audio and video to an mkv and ffmpeg to remux into mp4 without any conversions. The same mp4 players brigher in QuickTime than when played via Plex for Mac.

E.g.,

Plex for Mac:

[Album] imgur.com

And the same mp4 via Quicktime:

[Album] imgur.com

This makes me think the Plex for Mac player doesn’t support HDR. Is that correct?

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It tonemaps HDR to SDR (see this thread). AFAIK, there is no way to adjust color, brightness, etc. Plex for Mac/Win uses the mpv video player (mpv.io), but does not support the use of a mpv.conf file.

You might try Plex Media Player. It is also built using MPV. It supports using a mpv.conf file. You might be able to adjust brightness that way.

See Plex Docs -> Plex Media Player -> Advanced Configuration

1 Like
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I’m pretty sure that neither Plex for Mac or Plex Media Player support native HDR on macOS.

The mpv folks are working on support for native HDR.

https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/pull/8404

But I dunno if that implies anything for the future of Plex. I wouldn’t be surprised if Plex looked at a Catalyst-based approach.

If you want true native HDR on macOS I think either Quicktime or maybe Optimus Player are your best current choices.

But I also don’t think there’s any way to get lossless HD audio out of a Mac …

4

Thanks, both. I’m not actually intending to use Plex for Mac as a player; it was just part of my troubleshooting when I was first trying to figure out why the film didn’t look right on the TV.

Once I realised the TV didn’t support HDR, I wanted to at least confirm that the mkv I was getting out of MakeMKV was playable without loss of quality. Since the iMac supports HDR, it caused a lot of head-scratching when the Plex playback looked the same as my TV playback, yet playback via Quicktime looked good (I used ffmpeg to change containers to mp4, since QT doesn’t support mkv).

So I’m basically going to stick with my old blurays of the film until I upgrade my TV.

But I suppose I ought double-check – will the Plex app for AndroidTV (I’m thinking to get a Sony) direct play HDR?

Now that I’m digging, I’m getting really confused and think it might support 4k, but not HRD, as this page says video bit depth needs to be 8, while my 4K HDR blurays are 10b.

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That page is for SmartTVs not Android TV devices (and might need updating as well).

I’ve a 2015 Shield Pro and a 2018 FireStick 4K, both of which run Android TV. Both play 4K HDR blu-ray rips.

You can search the Android TV section for any Sony issues. I don’t follow the Sony posts closely, but I don’t remember any glaring issues.

Some additional FYIs:

  • TV apps, including Plex, cannot pass lossless audio, such as TrueHD to attached audio equipment, even when using HDMI-eARC. This is a TV manufacturer restriction.

  • If you want to pass TrueHD + Atmos to sound equipment, you’ll need a Nvidia Shield. It is the only streaming box that can passthrough TrueHD + Atmos. The Rules of 4K thread has additional info.

  • Dolby Vision support in Plex is still a work in progress. Rips of DV blu-rays may or may not play in Dolby Vision. If not, they should still play in HDR10. This thread has more info.

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