Upscaling with nine methods, a before-and-after comparison, a smoother torrent start, and a sharper Watch section.
New
Upscaling. Nine ways to enlarge a smaller video to your window on the GPU, from MetalFX, FSR and NIS to small neural networks. Choose one in a new Upscaling panel or in Settings, with a sharpness slider and an output size limit. The badge in the controls bar names the method in use. Apple’s neural passes, Anime, Anime4K and FSRCNNX work on 8-bit SDR video; on HDR and 10-bit video, and with SDR to HDR on, MacLC uses the other methods.
Compare Before and After. Split the picture down the middle: the left half without SDR to HDR, upscaling or motion interpolation, the right half with them.
Watch: genres and More Like This. Browse by Genre now sits at the top, more collections from The Edit appear while you scroll, Favorites have their own place in the sidebar, and every title page ends with similar titles.
Smoother torrent start. The buffer bar now fills in one continuous motion while a torrent loads.
Fixed
Torrent seeking. Seeking back to a part already downloaded plays at once, even while an earlier seek is still waiting for data.
Quit and frozen windows. Quitting no longer hangs while a video closes, and a stuck video can no longer freeze the whole app when you zoom, crop or use video shortcuts.
Web video and trailers. Fixed a crash on some web videos, trailers in Watch now play inside MacLC, and YouTube sign-in works with regional Google sites.
Technical changes: MacLC 1.6For the technically curious
Upscalers: MetalFX spatial, FSR 1, NIS, ArtCNN, Anime4K and FSRCNNX (downloaded only after you accept its LGPL-3.0 licence).
308 unit tests pass. Release image built from tag 1.6 with C assertions compiled out.
Moved to an Xcode project, modernized for macOS 27 and Apple Silicon, and touch-ready hit targets across the UI.
New
Xcode project. MacLC now builds from an Xcode project (Xcode 27.2), for easier contributions and debugging.
Modernized for macOS 27. Replaced deprecated APIs across the app: IOKit master port, Core Audio main element, Core Video display link, the error icon, URL-handler lookups, the extensions dialog’s web view, and pasteboard file reads and writes.
Touch-ready hit targets. Buttons and controls meet larger minimum hit targets where macOS 26/27 touch input applies, for MacBooks with a touchscreen.
Fixed
A few interface warnings. Removed a stale reference to a deleted custom button class, fixed a layout conflict on the video view’s title-bar buttons, and fixed a focus call that could target a detached sidebar view.
Technical changes: MacLC 1.5For the technically curious
Xcode project at extras/package/macosx/MacLC.xcodeproj; app still packaged with make -j12 package-macosx.
302 unit tests pass. Release image built from tag 1.5 with C assertions compiled out.
Streaming services discovery and editorial collections in Watch, Choose a Version with jargon tips, history and resume, clearer torrent streaming, and a YouTube section.
New
Discovery in Watch. Home can be narrowed to the streaming services you use (Netflix, Apple TV+, Disney+, Prime Video, HBO Max, Hulu, Paramount+, Peacock, Crunchyroll, MUBI, Criterion Channel, Canal+, SkyShowtime, BBC iPlayer, Starz, Shudder…). It reads the public catalogs of a community add-on installed from the services sheet in one click. Genre tiles, and The Edit: editorial collections chosen by MacLC and renewed every two weeks, matched against catalog add-ons (Cinemeta by default). Shelves scroll with a livelier, elastic feel and no scroll bars.
Choose a Version. Each stream of a title is read into plain facts: resolution, HDR, Dolby Vision, sound (such as 5.1 or Atmos), language, size and number of peers, with filters so anyone can pick one without knowing the jargon.
Tips that explain the jargon. Short animated tips explain terms like HDR, Dolby Vision, and seeds or peers.
History, favorites and resume. Favorites and History in the sidebar under Watch, and Continue Watching on Watch’s Home. Playback resumes where it stopped, also after quitting and relaunching MacLC. Mark as Watched puts a badge on the title’s card. Stored locally only.
Torrents you can follow. Playback starts once a few seconds of the film are verified, with fewer stalls; the buffer adapts to how fast the swarm is. The DHT routing table is kept between launches so peers are found in seconds. An animated screen explains each step while a torrent opens (finding peers, first pieces, buffering, with speed and peers), and a marker on the playback bar shows what is downloaded ahead, with speed, peers and a details card.
YouTube section. A YouTube section in the sidebar with Home, Subscriptions, History, Watch Later, Liked Videos, Playlists, plus search, channels and playlists. Runs on yt-dlp (free, installed with brew install yt-dlp). Signing in is optional: use Google’s own sign-in page in a web view inside MacLC, which keeps only the session cookies yt-dlp needs in a private file, or use a signed-in browser session. Home and search work without signing in.
Fixed
Quitting after large torrents. Quitting right after watching a large torrent could leave MacLC frozen for about 40 seconds. Leaving a torrent is now bounded to 3 seconds, and if quitting ever stalls, MacLC records a diagnostic report in ~/Library/Logs/MacLC/ and ends.
Technical changes: MacLC 1.4For the technically curious
BitTorrent start gate: waits for 20 s of film until the swarm’s speed is known, then 10 to 90 s depending on how much faster than the film the download is; plays anyway after two minutes. Deadline window = two minutes of what the player actually reads, at least 48 MiB. Player lead (PTS delay) follows the start buffer, capped at 10 s. Default trackers added. The interface reads a JSON snapshot from the module (peers, trackers, speeds, buffered ranges) about twice a second, with no libtorrent round trip.
Quit watchdog in the launcher: 12 s after quitting starts, it samples the threads to ~/Library/Logs/MacLC/quit-hang-*.txt and exits.
Watch history: one JSON file, written atomically. A title counts as watched from 92 % of its length; under 15 s in is treated as a mis-click and not remembered.
YouTube: yt-dlp with --cookies <file> (file mode 0600) or --cookies-from-browser; extra options always placed before -- so an address can never be read as an option.
302 unit tests pass. Release image built from tag 1.4 with C assertions compiled out.
A Watch section to browse catalogs from Stremio-compatible add-ons, nine sound modes with Voice Boost, a 10-band equalizer, and Play on TV.
New
Watch: browse add-on catalogs. A new section in the sidebar with Home, Movies and TV Shows in the style of the Apple TV app. Browse featured carousels, shelves, Top 10 ranks, genres and title pages with cast, ratings and episode stills.
Add-ons (Stremio-compatible). Install add-ons that speak Stremio’s protocol for catalogs, title details and streams. Cinemeta comes built in for posters and search; add Community or Official add-ons in one click from Settings › Add-ons, or paste an address. MacLC ships no content itself: use add-ons only for content you have the right to watch.
Stream picker. Choose from streams provided by your add-ons with quality badges (4K, HDR, Dolby Vision, 1080p). Plays web links, YouTube videos or torrents directly through MacLC’s built-in streaming engine.
Sound modes. Nine modes, in the style of Apple’s sound settings: Voice Boost, Night, Cinema, Music, Bass Boost, Spoken Word, Headphones, Small Speakers and Custom, each with an Intensity slider.
Voice Boost. Makes dialogue louder and clearer without raising music and effects. Measured: +7.4 dB of dialogue advantage on a 5.1 mix, +4.8 dB in the voice band on a stereo mix.
10-band equalizer and limiter. A 10-band equalizer (32 Hz to 16 kHz) under Audio › Equalizer… (⌥⌘E) or the playback bar, with a limiter that keeps loud moments from clipping.
Play on TV (beta). Send what is playing to an Apple TV or another AirPlay receiver, or to a Chromecast, with the Play On button in the toolbar or the Now Playing bar. Control playback from MacLC or with your TV’s remote.
Fixed
Settings cards in Dark mode. Settings cards now follow Dark mode when MacLC’s appearance differs from the system setting.
Menu symbols. A menu item without a symbol no longer removes symbols from its whole group.
Technical changes: MacLC 1.3For the technically curious
Add-ons: the Stremio add-on protocol (manifest, catalog with search, genre and skip extras, meta, stream, addon_catalog). Streams become MacLC addresses: magnet links (with the file name the add-on gives) through MacLC’s BitTorrent module (libtorrent 2.1), web links as they are, YouTube ids through yt-dlp.
Watch: native AppKit, artwork extended under the toolbar with NSBackgroundExtensionView (Liquid Glass, macOS 26).
Sound: equalizer on ISO bands, then an optional compressor, then maclc_dialogue, then a limiter at -1.5 dB. maclc_dialogue is a new audio filter: 5.1 rebalance towards the centre channel; stereo centre extraction by STFT with vDSP (1024 points, 16 ms latency).
AirPlay: a new airplay stream output. MacLC serves the video as HLS (fragmented MP4, the audio as an EXT-X-MEDIA rendition) on your network, and AVPlayer sends it to the receiver over AirPlay.
Upstream fixes on the way: the Chromecast demuxer stopped early at the end of a file (cut endings); HLS published only one final segment and advertised BANDWIDTH=0; the fragmented MP4 muxer never flushed a deleted track; stream outputs now forward the clock (set_pcr) so HLS cuts segments.
Release image built from tag 1.3 with C assertions compiled out, after a smoke test of 26 files.
A library for your videos and music, five quality levels for SDR to HDR, and a new video engine built for MacLC.
New
A library for everything you watch. Home picks up where you left off, then Continue Watching, Recently Added and your albums. Videos, Shows, Artists, Albums, Songs, Genres, Favorites and Playlists each have their own search and sorting.
Up Next and Now Playing. See and reorder what plays next, with chapters. Going back to the library keeps a live picture of the video in a floating Now Playing bar.
HDR badges in the library. Dolby Vision, HDR10, HLG and 4K badges show which videos will shine before you open them.
Tags and artwork built in. Genres, track numbers, years and album covers are read with nothing to install.
SDR to HDR quality levels. Auto, Fast, Balanced, High and Maximum. High and Maximum use a small model trained by Hazen Studio to find lights and reflections. Auto picks the best level your Mac can keep up, on power or on battery.
Hold to Compare. Hold M (or the Hold to Compare button) to see the original while you decide.
A new video engine. MacLC’s own video engine plays Dolby Vision and HDR10+ and applies the advanced picture settings.
Improved
Resume, done right. MacLC no longer offers to resume a video at or past its end, and remembers finished videos as watched.
Panels follow Light and Dark. Audio Effects, Video Effects, Track Synchronization, Media Information and Bookmarks are standard Mac panels now.
Tidier menus. One separator between groups, and no duplicate items after saving a playlist.
Fixed
Phone HDR videos that crashed. Some HDR videos recorded by phones (HLG, in VP9 or AV1) made MacLC quit within seconds; they play now.
HLG in WebM. HLG videos in WebM files play in HDR instead of SDR.
iPhone HDR videos. iPhone HDR videos (Dolby Vision 8.4) no longer stop and restart about a second after they start.
Camcorder and TV files. .ts, .m2ts and .mts files (camcorders, TV recordings, Blu-ray copies) open.
Fewer crashes. When the library makes thumbnails, with damaged videos, when quitting during playback or right after starting a video, after removing an equalizer preset, and when quitting after using Bookmarks or a torrent.
Local network. macOS now says why MacLC asks to look for media servers and shared folders on your network.
Technical changes: MacLC 1.2For the technically curious
Media library: VideoLAN’s libmedialibrary and TagLib linked statically; native AppKit interface on Liquid Glass (macOS 26).
SDR to HDR: Fast (one curve), Balanced (scene statistics, guided base layer, area limiter, debanding, subtitle and logo protection), High and Maximum (bilateral grid of gains predicted by a small network with MPSGraph from a 256×256 thumbnail; 0.45 and 0.53 ms a frame on M3 Max).
Metal output (maclc_metal): Dolby Vision RPU decoding ported from libplacebo 7.351, HDR10+ scene peaks or the ST 2094-40 curve, tone curves, gamut mapping for BT.2020 sources, upscaler and downscaler filters, 360° video and .cube LUTs; 0.05 % mean error against the C reference on a 4K profile 8.1 frame.
Resume rules shared by the library and the legacy store: media of three minutes or more, never in the first or last minute (or 5 %), never at or past the end.
Decoders that read past the end of a picture (FFmpeg VP9, dav1d) get a tail after the last plane; the HLG transfer reaches the display for VP9.
Static libdvbpsi for MPEG-TS; licences of MacLC and of the static libraries in the app.
Release image built with C assertions compiled out and frame pointers kept, after a Guard Malloc pass over 61 test files.
Everything MacLC needs is now inside the app: nothing else to install.
Improved
A self-contained app. Some files (AAC sound, MKV videos, some subtitles, torrents) used to need extra software. Everything now ships inside MacLC.
Clear first launch. The disk image explains, in English and French, why macOS asks you to click Open Anyway the first time.
Torrents on every Mac. Torrents that rely on secure connections now work on every Mac, with nothing else to install.
macOS 26 required. Older systems get a clear message instead of a crash.
Technical changes: MacLC 1.1.1For the technically curious
143 libraries from 56 Homebrew formulae bundled in Contents/Frameworks, with every reference rewritten to @loader_path; their licences in Contents/Resources/Licenses.
The bundled OpenSSL is pointed at /etc/ssl/cert.pem so libtorrent accepts HTTPS trackers and web seeds.
Torrent streaming. Open a .torrent file or a magnet link and playback starts while it downloads — from the Open panel, Browse, the Finder or Open a Link. Subtitles in the torrent are picked up, and episodes play one after another.
Removed
Podcasts and radio. Along with the Streams section of the sidebar.
Fixed
Fewer crashes. When opening a network service in Browse, when quitting while the controls fade out, at the end of a file renamed during playback, and in the media information window.
No more freezes. Progress dialogs no longer freeze playback or stop MacLC from quitting, and a server that keeps its connection open after a redirect no longer hangs playback.
Older subtitle files. Subtitles saved in an older text format, such as Western (ISO-8859-1), show correctly again when you choose it in Settings.
Smoother fast action. Smooth motion no longer smears fast action.
Technical changes: MacLC 1.1For the technically curious
New bittorrent module on libtorrent-rasterbar 2.x: magnet metadata cached on disk, one file streamed with deadlines on a window of pieces ahead of the reader; playback starts in 6 s instead of 13 s with one peer at 1.5 MB/s.
HTTP/2: ending the receive half of the socket wakes the receive thread when a server keeps the connection open after GOAWAY (archive.org, many CDNs).
Audio and video output references no longer leak on each playback; Now Playing commands return the right status.
The first public beta: a native Mac video player built on libVLC, with HDR done properly.
Highlights
SDR to HDR. Makes lights, skies and reflections in ordinary videos glow on HDR screens, one click away on the playback bar.
HDR that explains itself. A card says which format is playing and why; choose Dolby Vision, HDR10+ or HDR10 and a picture style (Accurate, Balanced, Bright) in one click.
Smooth motion. Creates the frames in between so 24 fps films can play at up to 120 fps, with Apple’s own tools, an AI or SmoothVideo Project.
Play a link. Paste a YouTube or video page link and it plays like a file (with the free yt-dlp).
Settings in plain words. One window, eight sections and a search; every option says what you will see or hear.
Liquid Glass. Playback controls on glass, a glass capsule that confirms volume, speed and track changes, windows that fit the video, menus in Apple’s words, and no traffic cones anywhere.
Six HDR defects fixed in the inherited code. Brightness follows the screen the window is on, subtitles no longer dazzle over HDR scenes, and HDR films play properly on ordinary screens.
Technical changes: MacLC 1.0 “Dawn”For the technically curious
HDR advisor: presentation and picture mode chosen from the stream (transfer, primaries, mastering volume, MaxCLL/MaxFALL, Dolby Vision configuration) and the display (potential, current and reference EDR headroom, battery, Low Power Mode).
Picture modes: Accurate (exact to 90 % of peak, PQ-domain shoulder), Balanced (ITU-R BT.2390 EETF), Bright (up to 1.6× before the roll-off); PQ anchored at 100 cd/m² at SDR white.
Frame interpolation filter maclc_frc: VTFrameRateConversion, VTLowLatencyFrameInterpolation, VTMotionEstimationSession with an overlapped block motion-compensated warp in Metal, blend, RIFE v4.25 on Core ML and SVP through VapourSynth.
Settings: 240 guarded configuration reads and a startup self-check (8 panes, 8 ok, 0 failed).