# Does HDR10+ Work on Mac? What a Mac Player Actually Does | Stoic

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## Key takeaways

* Apple's Mac HDR page lists Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG. HDR10+ is not on it.
* An HDR10+ file is an HDR10 file with extra metadata, so it still plays as normal HDR10.
* What you lose without HDR10+ handling is per-scene brightness guidance, which matters most on dim displays.
* Stoic reads the HDR10+ scene peak on every frame and uses it when fitting highlights to your display. It does not apply the full HDR10+ tone curve.

If you searched for an HDR10+ player for Mac, you probably have a file that says HDR10+ on the box and you want to know whether your Mac does anything with that. The honest answer has two halves, and the second half is the interesting one.

## What HDR10+ adds to HDR10

Plain HDR10 describes the whole film with one set of numbers: the brightest pixel anywhere (MaxCLL) and the brightest average frame (MaxFALL). A display that cannot reach that peak has to guess how to squeeze everything down, and it uses the same squeeze for a candlelit scene and for the sun.

HDR10+ attaches metadata to each scene, standardised as SMPTE ST 2094-40 and introduced by Samsung and Amazon in 2017\. It tells the display how bright that particular scene gets, so the squeeze can be tuned shot by shot. The picture underneath is still a normal HDR10 stream, which is why a player that knows nothing about HDR10+ can still show it.

## What macOS says about it

Apple's page on [playing HDR video on Mac](https://support.apple.com/en-us/102205) says the built-in display and Pro Display XDR support Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG. HDR10+ does not appear anywhere on that page. We have found nothing from Apple saying the system applies HDR10+ dynamic metadata, so our working assumption, and it is an assumption, is that an HDR10+ file played through Apple's own pipeline is treated as HDR10.

That is not a disaster. You still get HDR, with the same colour and the same peak the mastering engineer signed off on. You lose the scene-by-scene tuning, which shows up most when the file is mastered much brighter than your screen.

## How to tell whether your file is HDR10+

Do not trust the filename. Release groups tag files loosely. Ask the file itself. With ffprobe, which ships with FFmpeg:

```
ffprobe -v error -select_streams v:0 -show_frames \
  -read_intervals "%+#5" \
  -show_entries frame=side_data_list file.mkv
```

Look for a side data entry named `HDR Dynamic Metadata SMPTE2094-40 (HDR10+)`. If it is there, the file carries HDR10+. If you only see mastering display and content light level entries, it is plain HDR10\. MediaInfo reports the same thing in its HDR format line. Our [colour metadata guide](https://www.stoicplayer.com/blog/check-video-colour-space-on-mac) walks through the rest of the output.

## Dolby Vision is a different question

People often mix the two up. HDR10+ and Dolby Vision are rival dynamic-metadata systems. A Dolby Vision Profile 8.1 file falls back to HDR10 cleanly, while Profile 5 has no fallback and goes green and purple without Dolby Vision processing. If your file says Dolby Vision, read [Profile 5 vs 8.1](https://www.stoicplayer.com/blog/dolby-vision-profile-5-vs-8-1-on-mac) instead.

## What Stoic does with HDR10+

Stoic reads the HDR10+ scene peak (the maxSCL value) from each frame and uses it as the peak when it maps highlights to the headroom your display has at that moment. The inspector shows "HDR10+ maxSCL" as the source of the scene peak, so you can see it happening. What Stoic does not do is apply the full ST 2094-40 tone curve. We would rather say that plainly than let HDR10+ on a feature list imply more than it does.

## A sensible checklist

* Confirm the file really has HDR10+ side data before blaming a player.
* On an external display, switch on High Dynamic Range in System Settings -> Displays.
* If it looks flat or grey, that is a different problem: [why HDR looks washed out on Mac](https://www.stoicplayer.com/blog/hdr-looks-washed-out-on-mac).
* To confirm HDR is really reaching the screen, use [our HDR playback check](https://www.stoicplayer.com/blog/check-hdr-video-on-mac).

## HDR10+ read, and shown to you

Stoic is a native HDR player for Apple silicon Macs on macOS 26 or later, with HDR10, HDR10+, HLG and Dolby Vision. One purchase covers up to three Macs.

[Buy now](https://checkout.dodopayments.com/buy/pdt%5F0NoFF3ULkfeucBnMycGW2?quantity=1&redirect%5Furl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stoicplayer.com%2Factivate&paymentCurrency=USD&showCurrencySelector=true)

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> macOS does not list HDR10+ as a supported format, but HDR10+ files still play as HDR10. What you lose, how to check your file, and what a player can do.

Source: https://www.stoicplayer.com/blog/hdr10-plus-on-mac