Dolby Vision 2 is here for TVs – this time it’s fixing motion, bumping up HDR quality, and comes in two flavors

• Dolby Vision 2 will include a new image engine, and adaptive 'Content Intelligence'
• Dolby Vision 2 Max has 'Authentic Motion' and is designed for high-end TVs
• Hisense is the first TV maker to announce support

Dolby has announced the successor to its advanced HDR format, Dolby Vision. Appropriately enough, it's called Dolby Vision 2, and over time it will replace both the current Dolby Vision standard and the Dolby Vision IQ variation, which adapts the picture based on the ambient brightness in the room.

However, it's not the only option: Dolby is also introducing Dolby Vision 2 Max, which is an even more advanced version designed specifically for high-end TVs, such as elite OLED TVs and new RGB mini-LED TVs.

Dolby Vision 2 will be supported by Hisense on high-end TVs that use the MediaTek Pentonic 800 chips, which is the first chip with full support for the new standard, and includes the groundbreaking 116-inch RGB Mini-LED that we recently tested in-depth.

This chip is used by other TVs, but we're not sure which models will support Dolby Vision 2, because which chips are used in which TVs is not always as logical as you might thing – I've reached out to all the major TV companies to ask about their plans to support Dolby Vision 2 in the future, and will publish any news I receive.

So what's actually new this time? There's a big focus on adapting the picture to improve it while keeping the artistic intent the same, and this time that's not just about colors and luminance – Dolby Vision 2 Max also brings with it some exciting-sounding tweaks to motion handling.

Content Intelligence is here

"Dolby Vision 2 redefines how we think of Dolby Vision to unleash the full capabilities of modern TVs while giving artists unprecedented opportunities to push their creative boundaries further than ever before,” says John Couling, Senior Vice President, Entertainment at Dolby Laboratories, in the introduction to the new format.

There are two main areas that have changed in all kinds of Dolby Vision, with one particularly big change in Dolby Vision 2 Max.

Part of the pitch of Dolby Vision was always that it helps to adapt the original mastered picture to the capabilities of your particular TV, and Dolby Vision 2 will expand on this depending on what's happening in the content itself, as well as what screen you're using. There are a few key new features, and Dolby's wrapped them all up in the name 'Content Intelligence'.

First up is Precision Black, which is designed to "reduce consumer frustration that the image is 'too dark'" by boosting content that's just too murky to see on some TVs (too late for that infamous Games of Thrones battle, but so it goes), but promises to do this "without compromising artistic intent."

Next up is Light Sense, which aims to adapt the picture based on the ambient lighting in the room, but in combination with "reference lighting data from the content source" for best results – making it an improvement (and a replacement for) the adaptive picture of Dolby Vision IQ.

And there are optimizations for live sports, including "white point adjustments" and "motion control" that are both specifically aimed at improving live sports broadcasts.

The second big change after Content Intelligence is a "redesigned and even more powerful image engine" powering Dolby Vision 2. There's not much detail on this yet, but basically Dolby has upgraded the tools that power the creation and playback of Dolby Vision content, offering new options for creators, while also promising that "content in Dolby Vision will look even more astonishing when enjoyed on a Dolby Vision 2 display."

Authentic Motion to the Max

The more mysterious part of Dolby Vision 2 so far is the Max version. Dolby says that it will have more to share on this later, but it's basically designed to make the most of the highest-performing TVs, including bi-directional tone mapping and new advanced tools for enthusiasts.

The overall idea is to push the highest-performing TVs as far as they can go, to really give you visual bang for your buck when it comes to punchy and clear picture quality.

But we do know that Dolby Vision 2 Max will have the feature I'm most intrigued by out of everything mentioned so far (and probably most videophiles will feel the same): Authentic Motion. It seems to do for motion handling what Dolby Vision does for dynamic range, enabling it to be tweaked on a "shot-by-shot basis" by the creators when mastering the movie or TV show, presumably rather than having the TV set to a particular motion setting that overrides everything.

Dolby makes clear that this is "the world’s first creative driven motion control tool" [emphasis mine], and that this will "make scenes feel more authentically cinematic without unwanted judder".

It might provide the perfect solution to a potential issue with Filmmaker Mode on TVs: we don't want artificial motion smooth to make movies look unnatural, but TVs aren't always capable of showing the 24fps movement of film, with some timing issues that create juddery effects.

If this can be solved by having the filmmakers add in some motion adjustments to the film master encode, which are then communicated to the TV through Dolby Vision 2, that could be a win all around: always natural motion, but only when it's needed.

The only downside? Dolby Vision 2 Max is aimed at the highest-end TVs, but it may be more mid-range models that benefit most from some smart motion control. However, we've tested high-end TVs this year that suffered from juddering out of the box and needed some tweaking, so there's definitely room for it everywhere.

If some of the updates in Dolby Vision 2 feel a little vague in terms of what improvements you should expect from them, don't worry – I'll be speaking to Dolby in-depth about the changes soon, to get a sense of how big a change this will be in practice.

When will all this arrive? More info on availability and timing will come later – even if makers of the best TVs support it, we also need content to be produced using it. So far, Canal+ is confirmed to be on board for that, but we'll need to hear a lot more.

When it comes to the TV makers, we know very little. Dolby confirmed that Hisense will support it on some TVs, but other manufacturers have generally declined to comment about support, or haven't confirmed either way at the time of writing – however, it's my understanding that Samsung is likely to stay committed to HDR10+ only.

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