MacLC 1.2

What's new

• A library for everything you watch. A native library window for macOS 26: Home picks up where you left off, then sections for videos, shows, music and playlists, an Up Next list and a Now Playing bar. Tags and artwork are read from the files, and HDR badges (Dolby Vision, HDR10, HLG) show which videos will shine.
• SDR to HDR quality levels. Auto, Fast, Balanced, High and Maximum. High and Maximum use a small model trained by Hazen Studio (about half a millisecond a frame on Apple silicon). Hold to Compare shows the original.
• A new video engine. MacLC's own Metal engine plays Dolby Vision (profiles 5 and 8.1) and HDR10+, and applies the advanced picture settings, gamut mapping, 360° video and LUTs.
• Camcorder and TV files. .ts, .m2ts and .mts files (camcorders, TV recordings, Blu-ray copies) and HLS streams made of TS segments now open.
• Panels that follow the system. Audio Effects, Video Effects, Track Synchronization, Media Information and Bookmarks are standard Mac panels, in Light and Dark.

Fixes

• Phone HDR videos that crashed. Some HLG recordings from phones (VP9 or AV1, 10-bit) made MacLC quit within seconds. They play now, and HLG videos in WebM files play in HDR instead of SDR.
• iPhone HDR videos (Dolby Vision 8.4) no longer stop and restart a second after they start: they stay on the native output when the screen can show them.
• Fewer crashes: when the library makes thumbnails; with damaged HEVC videos; when quitting during playback, or right after starting an SDR video with SDR to HDR on; at every launch when an audio effects profile named an equalizer preset you had removed; when quitting after using Bookmarks, Save Playlist or a torrent; when a rotated video changed size.
• Metal engine: right colours for 4:2:2 and UYVY videos, and no drawing errors when zooming or panning far.
• No more abort at launch without a screen (lid closed with no external display, or the display asleep).
• Resume no longer offers to continue a video at or past its end, or at a time measured in the wrong unit (a 6-second clip offered "at 1:39:15").
• Smaller fixes: SDR to HDR settings changed just before quitting are kept, Hold to Compare can no longer leave the original on screen, one separator between menu groups, and macOS now says why MacLC asks to look for media servers and shared folders on your network.
• Licences of MacLC and of the libraries built into it are in MacLC.app/Contents/Resources/Licenses/.

Install and first launch

1. Open the disk image and drag MacLC to Applications.
2. Open MacLC once. macOS says it could not verify MacLC is free of malware: click Done.
3. Open System Settings › Privacy & Security, scroll to Security and click Open Anyway next to "MacLC was blocked…", then confirm with your password or Touch ID. Only needed once.

Why this step? macOS opens downloaded apps without asking only when they are signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple, which requires a paid Apple Developer Program membership (99 USD a year). MacLC is a free, open-source project: it is signed ad hoc, which proves the files were not altered since the build but does not identify the author to Apple. macOS therefore asks you to confirm once. It does not mean the app is damaged or unsafe; the source is public and the SHA-256 of the disk image is below. The disk image contains the same explanation in English and French, and the README has the details (Terminal alternative included).

If macOS ever says MacLC "is damaged", the download is incomplete: download it again and compare the SHA-256.

Requirements

macOS 26 or later, Apple Silicon. Optional: yt-dlp for File › Open Web Video (brew install yt-dlp), SVP 4 Mac for the SVP interpolation engine.

SHA-256 (maclc-1.2.dmg): 7ebb014f339455c11f64cd0f990f0fb5d4c82940347a55678839fe03b44920c8