HDR incompatibility with cinema projector

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Level 1

8 points

HDR incompatibility with cinema projector

Last night I tried watching a movie on Apple TV+ on my home cinema projector, connected to my new Mac book pro via HDMI.

Every time I tried to play it, I’d get a pop up message telling me the screen is unable to play the HDR format and I cannot understand why.

I tried both mirroring screens and using the projector as a second screen. The second screen technique would allow me to play the movie on the laptop, but would stop when I tried to drag the movie window across to the projector screen.

Are there any workarounds here?

I cannot understand why anyone would make a format that can’t play on not just common devices, but but a cinema projector that can even play 3D movies...really?

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 11.2

Posted on Aug 1, 2021 10:11 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Urquhart1244

Level 10

146,202 points

Aug 1, 2021 12:02 PM in response to PDubs79

HDR input processing is a hardware feature that some projectors can do, and others can’t. See your projector manual. It is about expecting 16.7 million colors of information (SDR), and receiving data on 1073 million (HDR10) or 68719 million colors (DV), and the circuits on the projector don’t know how to deal with that.

In the Mac’s Display Preferences, you can set mirroring optimized to the external screen. That would have the Mac use the specifications of the projector, and playback in SDR if such are the screen specifications, ensuring compatibility.

Play HDR video on Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 2

PDubs79 Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 2, 2021 8:37 AM in response to Urquhart1244

Thanks for such a quick response @Urquhart1244!

I appreciate the detailed response, definitely helps me understand why.

I believe I tried the optimize to external screen setting and it didn't work, but I'll check again next time. If it really doesn't, I'll know it's because of the details you shared.

Maybe there's a way I can download the movie onto my Apple TV and then connect that to my projector rather than use my laptop, see if that might be a workaround.

I'm surprised there wasn't an option to view a lower res version of the HDR films.

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HDR incompatibility with cinema projector

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