Broad support for high dynamic range (HDR) video, such as HDR movies and TV shows from Apple or other providers, requires the latest version of macOS and a compatible Mac model. If your Mac, display, video cable, or video cable adapter doesn't support HDR10, video plays in standard dynamic range (SDR).
Mac models that support HDR
Running an RTL SDR USB Dongle On Your Mac The Easy Way With Cocoa RTL Server. I’ve had a few of the RTL radio tuner dongles for a while. These are USB devices that were originally made for use as TV tuners overseas, but it turns out that you can access the I/Q data stream, and turn them into an SDR (Software Defined Radio). Mac OSX users can have a hard time with the RTL-SDR as there are not many software packages available for it. One software package that is known to work well on OSX is GQRX, which is a general multi mode receiver GUI that is similar to the Windows software SDR#.
SDR# is the most commonly used Software Defined Radio receiver GUI that is used with the RTL-SDR. Natively, it runs on Windows, but since it is written in C#, it can also run on Mac OSX and Linux with Mono. Installing SDR# on OSX using Mono is a little more complicated compared to simply running it on Windows however.
Mac model | Built-in | External display | External display |
|---|---|---|---|
| MacBook Pro introduced in 2018 or later | HDR1 | HDR | HDR2 |
| MacBook Air introduced in 2018 or later | HDR1 | SDR | SDR |
| iMac introduced in 2020 | HDR | HDR | HDR |
| iMac Pro | HDR | HDR | HDR |
| Mac mini introduced in 2018 | — | HDR1 | HDR3 |
| Mac Pro introduced in 2019 | — | HDR | HDR |
| 1. Premium HDR content from Apple plays at resolutions up to 1080p (1920 x 1080). 2. If using Apple's adapter with HDMI on some 13-inch models, HDR content plays at resolutions up to 1080p. 3. All HDR content plays at resolutions up to 1080p. | |||
External displays. Use the Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports on your Mac to connect to external HDR10-compatible displays:
- DisplayPort displays: Use a cable that has a USB-C connector for your Mac and the appropriate connector for the port on your display, which is usually a DisplayPort, USB-C, or Thunderbolt 3 port.
- HDMI displays: Use an HDMI cable and a USB-C adapter such as the Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter or Belkin USB-C to HDMI Adapter.
- Apple Pro Display XDR supports several HDR formats, including HDR10, when used with a Mac compatible with this display.
When an external display tells your Mac that it supports HDR10, your Mac might automatically enable HDR for that display. You can also enable or disable HDR for external displays in Displays preferences.
Getting the best HDR picture
If HDR video doesn't play in HDR or with the quality you expect, try these solutions.
Check your Mac
- Install the latest Apple software updates for macOS Catalina or later. Some HDR features are available only with the latest macOS.
- Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Displays, then make sure that High Dynamic Range is selected. It appears only on third-party displays that support HDR10, not on built-in displays. If you don't want to use HDR, deselect this checkbox.
- Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Energy Saver. If ”Optimize video streaming while on battery power” is selected in the Battery tab, your Mac saves energy by playing HDR video in SDR while on battery power. To play in HDR, connect your Mac to power or deselect this checkbox.
Check your external display
- Make sure that your display supports HDR10. If the display has its own HDR setting, turn it on or set it to prefer HDR when available.
- Make sure that your display is using the latest firmware from the manufacturer. Check your display's documentation for details.
- Some televisions support HDR only on a specific input, such as HDMI input 2 or HDMI input 3. Check its documentation for details.
Check your media
If you're playing premium content from a third-party content provider, check with the content provider to be sure that they support HDR on your Mac.
Check your cables and other devices
- If you're using HDMI, make sure that the HDMI cable and adapter support HDR10. Apple recommends HDMI cables that have been tested with Apple TV 4K and a wide range of televisions, such as the Belkin UltraHD HDMI Cable. Compatible adapters include the Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter and Belkin USB-C to HDMI Adapter.
- If your video connection passes through an AV receiver, sound bar, or other device before connecting to your display, make sure that the device supports HDR10 and is using the latest firmware from the manufacturer. You can test by connecting your Mac directly to the display.
Check your viewing environment
The brightness and color of HDR video may vary depending on your Mac model and the lighting in your environment. Lower lighting conditions, such as in a dim room, enhance the visual effect of HDR.
Learn more
- For details about the HDR capabilities or settings of a third-party display, cable, or adapter, please check the documentation for the product, or contact the product vendor.
- Learn what to do if video on your HDR display is too bright or vivid.
- Learn about firmware updates for Pro Display XDR.
I’ve been working on developing OSX/Mac and Windows versions of SdrDx. At this time, SdrDx for OS X and Windows supports Ethernet-connected version of AFEDRI SDRs, the USB-connected Airspy (AirSpy HF+ under OS X only, via this OS X server), Ethernet-based Andrus MK1.5, USB FunCube Pro, USB FunCube Pro Plus, Peaberry, Ethernet based RFSPACE SDrs, USB RTL sticks (RTL supported under OS X only, via this OS X server) and Softrock SDR receivers. Both the Peaberry and Softrock SDRs require a lot of expertise to get working. The others are pretty much plug-and-play.
In addition, SdrDx can be made to support any SDR with a sound card interface, including I/Q input via your native or auxiliary sound card, with a little scripting work; the Peaberry and Softrock support use this mechanism via Python.SdrDx (running on the Mac) is shown to the right. SdrDx is a closed-source, free application.
SdrDx, in combination with your SDR, is an extremely powerful receiver. Reception, recording, playback, analysis, processing — it’s all there, and it’s all been made as easy to use as possible. Extensive documentation covers every aspect of operating the software, as well as providing numerous examples and images to help you along. If you’re an expert radio user, you’re sure to settle right in. If you’re still learning, you can look forward to software that lets your capabilities grow with your knowledge.
You can have real knobs and buttons
AirSpy HF+, RTL, SDR-IQ and SDR-14 users: You can download the executable application(s) appropriate to your OS (OS X or Windows) and the networking server for your OS (if you have an AirSpy HF+, SDR-IQ or SDR-14 and don’t already have a server) below. Remember, youSdr For Mac Catalina
must have a network server application installed to support these USB-based SDRs. Server applications for both OS X and Windows platforms for the SDR-IQ and SDR-14 are available in the list of downloads below; so far, the only available servers for the AirSpy HF+ and RTL sticks run under OS X. Other supported SDR types do not require a server application.Please consider the following makers of SDRs ahead of any others. These manufacturers have gone the extra mile to see that SDR software developers such as myself are provided with working SDR samples, technical support and interfacing data: • AFEDRI (822, 822x) |
The main application zip file will un-compress to a folder, inside which you will find the SdrDx application, and some other files. Please read
the documentation carefully. Take advantage of the extensive index. If you can’t find something in the index, please let me know. I try to keep the documentation up to date. It’s no trouble at all to add index entries, and generally speaking, I’m willing to expand the main manual itself if you find something I have not covered yet. Recent changes to the documentation may only be found in the beta documentation until a version update of the entire package is made; this is where to look if you ask me to add something, it’ll appear there first.Note to Windows OS users: Only run SdrDx and SwDb out of the folders I supply them in. Don’t stick the executables somewhere else. That way lies madness. MaDnEsS!
Current Version and related downloads
- Related Videos:
- For Developers (and those who would encourage developers)
- In order that SdrDx is able to support additional USB-based SDRs, a protocol-compatible server must be written by the SDR vendor or a third party. You can use this fully functional RTL USB-to-network server as a starting point — it does everything you need to do to talk to SdrDx. SdrDx will work with any SDR or SDR network server that acts like the sample server software; if you need to extend the network methods, for instance to control features unique to your SDR, let me know and I will do my best to support those extensions. However, note that I require that the actual SDR be provided to me for development and testing of those extensions.
Likewise, if you’re considering a new SDR design where you plan to have an Ethernet connection as one of, or the only, method of communication to the host computer, ideally it will be compliant with those protocols. If it is, it will “just work.” If it isn’t — it won’t, and software support for your design will be considerably more limited. Examples of such well-designed SDRs include the Andrus MK 1.5 and the AFEDRI, as well as the SDR-IQ via its network server applications. And of course all the RFSPACE networked SDRs.
If you’re looking for something to do, many USB-based receivers are desperately in need of precisely such a server. No, I don’t write these servers. I spend what time I have adding radio features to SdrDx. However, here is GPL’d source code for an SdrDx-compatible USB-to-Network server for the RTL 'stick' SDRs that can be refactored to support other USB devices. All you need to do with regard to SdrDx is tell me what device name you will use with the server (it currently reports in as 'RTLSVR', you need to pick a name for the device you’re supporting, and tell me what it is.)
- In order that SdrDx is able to support additional USB-based SDRs, a protocol-compatible server must be written by the SDR vendor or a third party. You can use this fully functional RTL USB-to-network server as a starting point — it does everything you need to do to talk to SdrDx. SdrDx will work with any SDR or SDR network server that acts like the sample server software; if you need to extend the network methods, for instance to control features unique to your SDR, let me know and I will do my best to support those extensions. However, note that I require that the actual SDR be provided to me for development and testing of those extensions.
- For Everyone:
- Is my SDR already supported? The answer is here: Check this list.
- Wideband RF Recordings — these are useful if you’d like to try out SdrDx but you don’t have an SDR yet. You can start SdrDx, press '>play (click that link, then look for the green button) and then enjoy receiving the described band, event, etc. You can tune within the bandwidth of the recording. So for instance, if you play the 6100 kHz recording, which is 200 kHz wide, you can tune from 6000 kHz to 6200 kHz — most of the 49 meter band! Just download and install SdrDx, then the file of interest, start SdrDx, press > and select the file (if it’s zipped, you have to unzip it first.)
- ISS space station on 145.800 MHz, April 13th 2018, with AFE822x HF/VHF SDR; SSTV transmission in PD120 mode – 84.0 MB download (image as received with Black Cat SSTV software can be viewed here)
- ISS space station on 145.800 MHz, Dec 5th 2017, with AFE822x HF/VHF SDR; SSTV transmission in PD120 mode – 111.5 MB download (image as received with Multimode software can be viewed here)
- Large (370 Mb download, 500 Mb file unzipped) wideband recording:6100kHz (49m band) SW, about 8 minutes. Settings: 200 khz span, fixed 6100.0 center, gridspacing=20, 6 db/div, Max=-54db
- SdrDx-WOL-8474-KHz-FSL-RTTY-news.wav.gz 100 MB gzip file containing a recording of RTTY news station WLO as received here at my QTH a few years ago. You can try out SdrDx’s RTTY demodulator with it: 8474 KHz, , , demo to Lo=-1150 and Hi=-850, scope set for 1033 Hz center and 170 Hz shift.
- Short (35Mb download) wideband recording:20m Pileup. 190 khz wide recording, fixed 14260.0 center, tune to 14207.0 and nearby USB, grid spacing 19, 0-3khz demod
- Short (13.5Mb download) wideband recording:Lovely 5 khz wide USB signal with canary. 190 khz wide recording, fixed 14245.0 center, tune to 14178.0 USB, grid spacing 15, 0-5 khz wide demod. Adjust CWO for perfect man’s voice at end. After I recorded this, I played it back over the air, and the ham told me his bird acted super interested in what it was hearing!
- Mac (Stable Version) for OS X 10.6.8 through 10.15
- SwDb 0.1m for the Mac (feedback! I need feedback!)
- Highly recommended:DX Toolbox
- for USB SDRs:
- USB Driver (you probably don’t need this):
- Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) and up USB-to-network server for the SDR-14 and SDR-IQ
- Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) and up USB-to-network server for the RTL stick SDRs
- OS X RTL Stick Server (10.6 and later)
- OS X AirSpy HF+ Server (10.6 and later, at Black Cat Systems)
- OS X Beta
- 64-bitOS X Beta 2.20p ZIP archive
Please Note: The OS X Beta changes at odd intervals, sometimes quite often. You can see when the beta build you have has been superseded by a new one by examining the SdrDx title bar at startup. Your SdrDx build time, and the latest SdrDx build time, are both displayed there. When there is a difference, there is a more recent Beta, and you can come right here and download it. Significant changes are indicated on the page below:
- 64-bitOS X Beta 2.20p ZIP archive
- Windows
- SdrDx 2.19n Beta for Windows (feedback! I need feedback!)
- SwDb 0.1m for Windows (feedback! I need feedback!)
- Highly recommended:DX Toolbox
- For USB SDRs:
- Windows USB-to-network server (SDRxx for the SDR-IQ only)
- Help for AFEDRI (preliminary)
People have been having problems getting the AFEDRI to work with SdrDx; I’m not sure why, but here is some information on what I did to get mine going.
Before you start, make sure you’ve set the audio output within SdrDx using to the correct device. If this is not set correctly, SdrDx cannot run.
Now as to the AFEDRI itself: First of all, I could not make the AFEDRI’s DHCP settings work at all. I contacted Alex, the designer, and after quite a few emails back and forth, he suggested a static IP configuration. I set that up, got it working on my normal network, and then connected it to my 2nd ethernet port on the Mac (this is under OS X 10.6.8) under a second network of 192.168.10.1; this involved some fairly annoying screwing around with the OS X configuration files. I never did get the DHCP to work, though some SdrDx users have. So I strongly suggest you set the AFEDRI up using a static IP; I think there may be some fairly severe bugs in the AFEDRI’s DHCP handling, or at least, ways it can be set up that simply don’t work. Other SDRs, such as the Andrus MK 1.5, configure using DHCP no problem, so it’s definitely something unique to the AFEDRI.
Having said that, it could very well be something I did in the configuration utility of the AFEDRI; the version I had only provided a Windows-only program, and I only fired up the laptop to work with it until I got it to work in general, and never looked back. Running windows give me hives. Still, I know for sure you can get the AFEDRI working with OS X — the AFEDRI is the SDR I’ve been using for quite a few months now; it’s a great SDR. I would expect results to be similar for Windows, that is, static IP will definitely work, and DHCP might not.
- Support for Andrus MK1.5 SDR
- Connect Andrus MK1.5 to your LAN Ethernet
- Start SdrDx 2.12p (or later)
- Open NET dialog and use auto-find to locate Andrus
- Close NET dialog
- Open SDR dialog and set bandwidth as desired
- Close SDR dialog
- Press RUN
- Support for Peaberry and (possibly) Softrock
- Unzip and copy .py file from within the .zip to your home directory
- Download and install PyUSB library
- Start SdrDx 2.12p (or later)
- Open a shell at your home directory and type ./tcp-to-peaberry.py
- In SdrDx, left-click SND button, select “Peaberry Radio” as input sound card, OK
- In SdrDx, right-click FCD button, check ON and AUDIO IQ, set OSX rate to 50000, or Windows rate to 48000, OK
- In SdrDx, left-click SDR button, set sample rate to 50000, OK
- In SdrDx, left-click FCD button — Peaberry should be running now
- Acknowledgements and Notices
Changes
Please refer to this page for the release version documentation.
Please refer to this page for the beta version documentation.
System Requirements
SdrDx and SwDb for the Mac require an Intel CPU, running Snow Leopard 10.6.8 or later.
So far, I have numerous third-party reports of SdrDx working under 10.6, 10.7, 10.8, 10.9, 10.10, 10.11 10.12, and 10.13.
Users of 10.11 through 10.13 report mixed results, under these OS X versions, USB server based SDR users are facing driver installation and activation problems, and tooltips and drop-down menus are blank; Apple’s gone and broken perfectly stable APIs again. Steps required to compensate for Apple’s idiot USB shenanigans are in the docs under new installs. No fix in known for the tooltips issue at this time.
There are two tricks required as of 10.9 and later:
First, you need to turn the “App Nap” feature off or when SdrDx is not the front window, OS X will put it to sleep, which will break it. Right click on the SdrDx app icon, select “info”, turn off App Nap, and close the info window. If you’ve got an SDR-IQ where the server runs under 10.9, you’ll need to do the same thing to the server application. Note: I suggest the very first thing you do with any application you install is turn off App Nap — it’s one of Apple’s worst ideas ever. That’s all there is to that.
Mac Sdr Software
Second, under 10.9 and later, for users of the SDR-IQ, Apple thoroughly broke the USB driver that is required for the SDR-IQ and SDR-14 (and possibly the CloudIQ — anyone have a CloudIQ running?) So in order to use the USB driver in the SDR-IQ/SDR-14 server application instead (so the USB to Net server will work), you need to enter the following in a shell right after you boot your machine…
sudo kextunload -b com.apple.driver.AppleUSBFTDI
…it’s not sticky, so you’ll have to do this every time you reboot your Mac.
And of course SdrDx requires an SDR as well if you want to receive live, although it can play back pre-recorded files without an SDR; in the specific cases of the AirSpy HF+, RTL SDR, SDR-IQ and SDR-14, you’ll need to use one of the server applications that puts these SDRs on the network. SdrDx’s support of RFSPACE SDRs and compatibles, and near-compatibles, is only via network connections, SdrDx does not directly interface with the USB connection of the SDR-IQ.
For the Mac, I am presently designing and testing and compiling under an OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) virtual machine (VMWARE) running under OS X / MacOS 10.12.6.
—
SdrDx and SwDb for the PC require an Intel CPU, running Windows XP or (possibly) a later version of the OS. SdrDx requires an RFSPACE, AFEDRI, Andrus MK1.5, FUNcube Dongle SDR, or a Soundcard-based SDR, or pre-recorded RF files (see above for some of these) in order to do anything useful; in the specific cases of the SDR-IQ and SDR-14, you’ll also need a server application that puts the SDR-IQ on the network. SdrDx handles the RFSPACE SDRs and compatibles (and near-compatibles) via the network, it does not directly interface with them via USB. You must run these applications out of the folders they are supplied in, as they depend on files in those folders.
For Windows, I am presently cross-compiling under Windows XP (in a VMWARE VM under OS X / MacOS 10.12.6.)