Telumehtar
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I want to create a thread just about Dolby Vision, not related to specific equipment. I'm not sure where to put it because most sub-forums are about specific equipment, but Bluray is at one end of the chain and is also one easy way to directly compare Dolby Vision with HDR10.
Just gathering up some things I have found out. I will update this post as I learn more -- but not necessarily quickly.
Colour grading and tone mapping
It is worth reading the Alexis Van Hurkman article about HDR colour grading. It teaches a lot about HDR and colour grading in general, but has things to say specifically about Dolby Vision:
"On an HDR television, however, both the base and enhancement layers will be recombined, using additional “artistic guidance” metadata generated by the colorist to determine how the resulting HDR image highlights should be scaled to fit the varied peak luminance levels and highlight performance that’s available on any given Dolby Vision compatible television."
I think this artistic guidance boils down to scene-by-scene tone mapping curves guided by the colorist (the person who does the colour grading of the raw camera footage to make it look pretty), instead of the fixed tone-mapping curves used for HDR10 by the TV manufacturers. Vincent Yeoh explains tone mapping in a YouTube video. It is the method by which a TV chooses to display colours that are encoded as brighter than the TV can display. Importantly, in HDR10 there is no standard for doing this. Dolby Vision brings it under the control of the artist instead of the TV manufacturer.
I managed to photograph a difference between Dolby Vision and HDR presentation on my LG E6 TV. The photos just show that in HDR10 some blue and white highlight detail has been rendered as entirely white. In Dolby Vision the details are preserved. This is presumably because the person doing the colour grading for that shot chose to use a different tone-mapping curve on TVs that can not show the full brightness.
Equipment
Players
Dolby vision supporting players are LG UP970 (awaiting firmware update) or Oppo UDP 203 (firmware version 20XEU-45-0605 or later).
AV Receivers
To pass through an AV receiver, some degree of support is needed. Yamaha have promised updates for RX-V681, RX-A860, RX-A1060, RX-A2060, RX-A3060 and CX-A5100.
Denon have promised updates for AVR-X1300W, AVR-X2300W, AVR-X3300W, AVR-X4300H, AVR-X6300H.
Possibly other manufacturers have also promised updates for some models.
Interestingly, I have found that if I have Dolby Vision working on my player and my TV, I can pause the disc, rewire my HDMI cables through my Yamaha 1060 AVR, resume playback and Dolby Vision keeps working!
TVs
Dolby have listed LG OLEDs (starting from the 2016 models), Philips, Vizio and TCL TVs that support Dolby Vision.
Dolby Vision Reviews
John Archer has a review of Despicable Me in Dolby Vision in Forbes. I am very skeptical of his claims about its improvement of motion and detail because I can't think of a mechanism for this other than different TV settings in different modes.
Just gathering up some things I have found out. I will update this post as I learn more -- but not necessarily quickly.
Colour grading and tone mapping
It is worth reading the Alexis Van Hurkman article about HDR colour grading. It teaches a lot about HDR and colour grading in general, but has things to say specifically about Dolby Vision:
"On an HDR television, however, both the base and enhancement layers will be recombined, using additional “artistic guidance” metadata generated by the colorist to determine how the resulting HDR image highlights should be scaled to fit the varied peak luminance levels and highlight performance that’s available on any given Dolby Vision compatible television."
I think this artistic guidance boils down to scene-by-scene tone mapping curves guided by the colorist (the person who does the colour grading of the raw camera footage to make it look pretty), instead of the fixed tone-mapping curves used for HDR10 by the TV manufacturers. Vincent Yeoh explains tone mapping in a YouTube video. It is the method by which a TV chooses to display colours that are encoded as brighter than the TV can display. Importantly, in HDR10 there is no standard for doing this. Dolby Vision brings it under the control of the artist instead of the TV manufacturer.
I managed to photograph a difference between Dolby Vision and HDR presentation on my LG E6 TV. The photos just show that in HDR10 some blue and white highlight detail has been rendered as entirely white. In Dolby Vision the details are preserved. This is presumably because the person doing the colour grading for that shot chose to use a different tone-mapping curve on TVs that can not show the full brightness.
Equipment
Players
Dolby vision supporting players are LG UP970 (awaiting firmware update) or Oppo UDP 203 (firmware version 20XEU-45-0605 or later).
AV Receivers
To pass through an AV receiver, some degree of support is needed. Yamaha have promised updates for RX-V681, RX-A860, RX-A1060, RX-A2060, RX-A3060 and CX-A5100.
Denon have promised updates for AVR-X1300W, AVR-X2300W, AVR-X3300W, AVR-X4300H, AVR-X6300H.
Possibly other manufacturers have also promised updates for some models.
Interestingly, I have found that if I have Dolby Vision working on my player and my TV, I can pause the disc, rewire my HDMI cables through my Yamaha 1060 AVR, resume playback and Dolby Vision keeps working!
TVs
Dolby have listed LG OLEDs (starting from the 2016 models), Philips, Vizio and TCL TVs that support Dolby Vision.
Dolby Vision Reviews
John Archer has a review of Despicable Me in Dolby Vision in Forbes. I am very skeptical of his claims about its improvement of motion and detail because I can't think of a mechanism for this other than different TV settings in different modes.