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July 12, 2025 · View on GitHub
CLI utility to work with HDR10+ in HEVC files.
Previously named hdr10plus_parser, now it's more than just a parser.
Building
Toolchain
The minimum Rust version to build hdr10plus_tool is 1.85.0.
Dependencies
On Linux systems, fontconfig is required.
Alternatively, system fonts can be bypassed by building with --no-default-features --features internal-font.
Options that apply to the commands:
--verifyChecks if input file contains dynamic metadata.--skip-validationSkip profile conformity validation. Invalid metadata is set to profileN/A.
Commands
-
extract
Extracts the HDR10+ metadata from a HEVC file to a JSON file.
Also calculates the scene information for compatibility with Samsung tools.If no output is specified, the file is only parsed partially to verify presence of metadata.
Input file:
- HEVC bitstream
- Matroska: MKV file containing a HEVC video track.
Flags:
--skip-reorderSkip metadata reordering after extracting.-l,--limitNumber of frames to process from the input. Processing stops after N frames.
Examples:
hdr10plus_tool extract video.hevc -o metadata.json # Directly using MKV file hdr10plus_tool extract video.mkv -o metadata.jsonffmpeg -i input.mkv -map 0:v:0 -c copy -bsf:v hevc_mp4toannexb -f hevc - | hdr10plus_tool extract -o metadata.json -Extract without validating:
hdr10plus_tool --skip-validation extract video.hevc -o metadata.json
-
inject
Interleaves HDR10+ metadata NAL units before slices in an HEVC encoded bitstream.
--verifyhas no effect with this command.Example:
hdr10plus_tool inject -i video.hevc -j metadata.json -o injected_output.hevc
-
remove
Removes HDR10+ metadata NAL units (or SEI messages) in an HEVC encoded bitstream.
--verifyhas no effect with this command.Example:
hdr10plus_tool remove video.hevc -o hdr10plus_removed_output.hevcffmpeg -i input.mkv -map 0:v:0 -c copy -bsf:v hevc_mp4toannexb -f hevc - | hdr10plus_tool remove -
-
plot
Allows plotting the HDR10+ brightness metadata into a graph. The output is a PNG image.
Flags:
-t,--titleThe title to set at the top of the plot-p,--peak-sourceHow to extract the peak brightness for the metadata [default:histogram]
Possible values:histogram,histogram99,max-scl,max-scl-luminance-s,--startSet frame range start-e,--endSet frame range end (inclusive)
Example:
hdr10plus_tool plot metadata.json -t "HDR10+ plot" -o hdr10plus_plot.png
-
editor
Allow adding and removing frames
edits.json The editor expects a JSON config like the example below:
{ // List of frames or frame ranges to remove (inclusive) // Frames are removed before the duplicate passes "remove": [ "0-39" ], // List of duplicate operations "duplicate": [ { // Frame to use as metadata source "source": int, // Index at which the duplicated frames are added (inclusive) "offset": int, // Number of frames to duplicate "length": int } ] }Example
hdr10plus_tool editor metadata.json -j edits.json -o metadata_modified.json
Wrong metadata order workaround
The skip-reorder option should only be used as a workaround for misauthored HEVC files.
Some rare retail discs use an incorrect workflow where the original metadata is inserted sequentially in the final video, which causes issues when B frames exist.
As the metadata is inserted for every frame in decode order, on playback it is likely that the presentation order is different.
In playback, this means that the metadata associated with the image presented may be wrong.
A simple way to tell if the metadata is in the wrong order is by looking at the SceneFrameNumbers list in the JSON.
If there are many entries where scenes only contain 1 to 3 frames, it is likely that the video has wrong order.
The SceneFirstFrameIndex values should also be aligned with scene cuts in the video.
If the scenes are small and misaligned, skip-reorder must be used when using extract to keep the order correct.
Sample files
Tears of Steel samples encoded with x265 using --dhdr10-info for tests.
Sample JSON metadata available here: https://bitbucket.org/multicoreware/x265_git/downloads/