Advanced Formats

Zuno is built to get the most out of high-end video and audio. This page explains the formats it supports, what your device needs, and which formats require Zuno Pro.

What Zuno Pro unlocks

The free Basic tier plays your library in high quality. Zuno Pro adds the premium picture and sound formats:

• Advanced HDR with dynamic, scene-by-scene tone mapping
• Enhanced HDR overall
• Immersive, object-based spatial audio
• Lossless and premium surround sound

Without Pro, content in these formats still plays. Zuno automatically falls back to a compatible version: advanced-HDR titles play in standard HDR, and immersive or premium audio plays as standard surround or stereo. You can start a Pro trial or subscribe from Settings → Subscription.

Video

High Dynamic Range (HDR)

Zuno supports the common HDR formats, giving you brighter highlights, deeper shadows, and richer colour on a compatible display:

• Standard HDR (HDR10)
• HDR with dynamic metadata (HDR10+)
• Advanced HDR with scene-by-scene dynamic metadata (requires Zuno Pro)
• Standard dynamic range (SDR) for everything else

For an advanced-HDR title, Zuno Pro plays the full advanced-HDR presentation. On the free tier, the same title plays using its standard-HDR base layer instead.

Files without a standard-HDR base

A small number of advanced-HDR files have no standard-HDR base layer to fall back to. These require Zuno Pro to play in colour.

HDR display settings

Zuno’s HDR settings (under Settings → Playback) let you fine-tune how HDR looks:

• Reduce Brightness on HDR lowers the overall brightness of HDR video, useful in a dark room or on very bright displays.
• HDR Brightness adjusts the HDR picture level to your taste.
• Subtitles are gently dimmed over HDR content so bright captions don’t bloom on HDR and OLED screens.

Audio

Zuno supports high-quality and object-based audio formats:

• Immersive, object-based spatial audio (requires Zuno Pro)
• Lossless and premium surround (requires Zuno Pro)
• Standard surround and stereo on all tiers

When you open the Audio Track menu during playback, each track lists its language, format, and channel layout so you can choose the one that suits your setup.

What actually plays on your setup

The final picture and sound depend on the whole chain: the source file, your Zuno tier, your Apple device, and your TV or receiver. Zuno detects what your hardware supports and delivers the best format it can, falling back gracefully when something isn’t available.

To see exactly what’s playing at any moment, including resolution, dynamic range, codecs, and channels, open Stats for Nerds from the player options.