The world of 4K UHD Blu-ray players has been relatively quiet in recent years. Brands like Samsung and LG have doubled down on TV technology, sidelining auxiliary AV components. That leaves only Sony and Panasonic for the North American market, and the former isn’t that interested in upgrading its Blu-ray hardware. Dolby recently announced that Dolby Vision 2 (DV2), an all-new HDR format, can be added to existing 4K players via a software update.
Unfortunately, Sony has already publicly stated that the company will not support the DV2 update. Panasonic did not respond to the publication’s question about this, and it could be a minute before the company does. The DV2 update isn’t a small improvement either; Dolby has expanded the HDR metadata available to content creators, enabling even more accuracy in brightness, color/contrast and motion clarity.
If you’re a movie buff, DV2 is a breakthrough in pictures that you probably won’t want to miss. However, the physical media audience is not exactly thrilled with these speculations. Sony hasn’t exactly been the bearer of good news in recent weeks, and some users on r/4kbluray are concerned that the manufacturer is locking DV2 support on brand new 4K Blu-ray players. (Please don’t do this, Sony.)
Dolby Vision 2 hasn’t arrived at the best time, but it looks like it’s going to be impressive
As is often the case in the world of consumer technology, the rollout of Dolby Vision 2 is a classic example of putting the cart before the horse, or software before hardware in this case. Even if the DV2 update were to roll out to existing Sony and Panasonic players, your TV or projector will also need to support the format.
Two versions of DV2 are also expected to hit the market: a basic level and an advanced option called Dolby Vision 2 Max. The latter will only be available on select high-end TVs and will support advanced DV2 features such as Authentic Motion and enhanced tone mapping. As for TVs, the DV2 rollout began a few weeks ago on select Hisense TVs, and our friends at RTINGS expect TCL and Philips to jump on the DV2 bandwagon as well. Fortunately, DV2 is fully backwards compatible with traditional Dolby Vision content, making catching up on compatibility a little easier for us consumers.
We’ll also be interested to see how the continued rollout of DV2 fits in with the current state of most consumer hardware. Artificial intelligence is causing a RAM crisis left and right, so even if Sony, Panasonic, or another AV brand released a 4K Blu-ray player with DV2 support, we could be paying pretty high prices for an aspect ratio that isn’t natively supported by most TVs on the market. What a strange time to buy a movie watching machine.
