3 ways Dolby Vision is the superior HDR format for the future

If you’re in the market for a new smart TV or projector, you’ll be parsing through a mountain of specs and terms that you may not be all that familiar with. Among them is HDR (High Dynamic Range) and its various standards. Two of the most common formats you’ll see listed are Dolby Vision and HDR10.

You might see formats with slightly different names like Dolby Vision IQ or HDR10+. Dolby Vision IQ offers the same fundamental performance as Dolby Vision but with the added use of light sensors, while HDR10+ brings the advent of dynamic metadata to HDR10 for more fine-tuned brightness and contrast in every frame.

To help you decide if choosing a manufacturer that supports Dolby Vision is right for you, we’ve put together a list of reasons why we find Dolby Vision to be the superior HDR format.

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Brightness is king

Brightness, nits, and tone-mapping

Brightness is already of paramount consideration when shopping for a projector or TV, and doubly so for those of us who want to watch our media in well-lit rooms during broad daylight. The need for brightness increases even more if you’re using a projector or an OLED display, as both formats suffer the most image degradation in bright rooms.

One of the chief complaints you’ll hear when watching HDR content is that the image is darker than SDR (Standard Dynamic Range). Since one of HDR’s primary aims is to enhance the contrast and detail in every frame, it will often dim the entire image to properly balance the highlights and shadows. Dolby Vision performs at the top of the range to manage this.

The Hisense 110 UX is the first TV with a peak brightness of 10,000 nits. Though this is in a very small window, and it costs a fortune.

While HDR10 can reach a peak brightness of 1,000 nits, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision are both capable of reaching 10,000 nits in peak brightness—ten times that of the original open-source HDR10. It’s important to point out, though, that to date, only a single television ever made can reach 10,000 nits of brightness, and even then, it’s irrelevant since content is not mastered to that nit level.

Where Dolby Vision stands out is a wider availability of content mastered at 4,000 nits, while most HDR10 and HDR10+ content is mastered at 1,000 nits. So, even though both Dolby Vision and HDR10+ have the same technical capabilities when it comes to brightness, the experience with Dolby Vision-specific content often remains superior. Dolby Vision also benefits from the precise implementation of dynamic metadata, affording it more granular control over brightness levels across different scenes.

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The future of color

Dolby Vision is better prepared for a 12-bit future

They say you get what you pay for, and Dolby Vision certainly isn’t free. Any television or projector manufacturer wishing to add it to their product must pay a licensing fee to do so, though estimates place that at less than $3 per unit. In contrast (pun intended), HDR10 and HDR10+ are royalty-free, costing the manufacturer nothing to integrate them.

Aside from superior brightness, Dolby Vision also carries greater color depth than HDR10 or HDR10+. Color depth is a measure of how many colors a display can show and refers to the number of bits used to represent the color of a single pixel. While HDR10 and HDR10+ sport a 10-bit color depth, Dolby Vision supports 12-bit color.

That may not sound like a huge difference, but it means that HDR10/10+ displays can show 1.07 billion different colors, while Dolby Vision actually reaches 68.7 billion different colors. Not only does this result in richer colors with far more depth, but more practically, it means a smoother transition between colors, which can help avoid the “banding” effect you’ll often see between shades of a color, particularly in dark scenes.

Related

Color gamuts: A quick explainer

When comparing display types to one another, the topic of color gamut always comes up. But what is it exactly and how do you read it?

Here again, Dolby Vision comes up against what is possible in modern displays while still maintaining an edge thanks to the mastering process. There are currently no 12-bit displays on the consumer market, and the race for 12-bit TVs seems to have been waylaid by the resolution race. However, most Dolby Vision content is mastered at 12-bit color, which can help preserve more detail in gradients, highlights, and shadows. Yet again, it demonstrates the superiority of dynamic metadata as Dolby Vision adapts the content for a 10-bit display to yield a better image. Once manufacturers begin releasing 12-bit displays, Dolby Vision content will find itself immediately ahead of the curve.

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Versatility

Let the content decide the format

A creator choosing to master their television show or movie in Dolby Vision is making an intentional artistic choice, and their aim is for that content to be experienced as close to the original master as possible. If you’re a cinephile or someone who values a theatrical-quality image at home, Dolby Vision support is a must-have.

While just about every HDR-enabled TV or projector supports HDR10, Dolby Vision compatibility is limited to certain manufacturers. Devices that support Dolby Vision inherently support HDR10 or HDR10+ as well, since, as mentioned before, not all HDR content is mastered in Dolby Vision. When selecting a TV or projector, choosing one with Dolby Vision leaves you with more options to get the most out of your display.

Dolby Vision is the HDR format best positioned for the future

Technical jargon aside, a great film or TV show should be viewed as close to the way the creator intended as possible. Creators go to great lengths when deciding how a scene is lit, shot, and mastered, all with a final vision in mind. Dolby Vision’s support for high peak brightness, greater color depth, and frame-by-frame tone mapping, establish it as the HDR format best prepared for the displays of the future, and the best canvas on which the displays of today can master content.