Amazon Rushes to Embrace Dolby Vision HDR

With 1080p streamed you get a substandard picture.
Is there some type of wizardry that's going to cure us of low bitrates and compression artifacts?

HVEC is nice, but it's not 4k HDR Streaming nice.

We managed to survive with the NTSC picture quality and standard for 60 years. Now we are facing the reality of having to replace our TV's every 8 to 10 years. I am sticking with my eight year old Vizio VO42 dumb TV. No spying and the picture is fine for my needs.

Essentially what has been coined Dolby Vision HDR sounds an awful lot like 10-BIT deep color.

Which has been available to the consumer market for years but for some reason BluRay standard was limited to 8-BIT color. What I'd like to see is the already standard HDMI 1.3 deep color 10-BIT that many people may already own put to use by this newfangled marketing jargon Dolby Vision HDR.

 
Here is what I found about Dolby Vision HDR vs. "HDR 10." Both are 10-bit color when released to consumers, but Dolby Vision is mastered in up to 12-bit color:

Dolby Vision vs HDR 10 - what's the difference?
We go through the differences between the two standards seen in today's Ultra HD HDR televisions
By Richard Easton, Expert Reviews (UK) - May 11 2016
»www.expertreviews.co.uk/ ··· fference

quote:

---

... Unlike some of the consumer technology face-offs of the past, picking sides isn't quite so straightforward when it comes to Dolby Vision vs HDR 10. This is because while Dolby Vision requires everything - from the content, to the player, to the screen - to all support Dolby Vision; such players and televisions will still be able to play HDR 10 content as well, which in theory gives you the best of both worlds.

However, it's HDR 10 support, rather than Dolby Vision, that's required as part of the Ultra HD Blu-ray official specifications, so on paper it has the upper hand in terms of content.

Most of the differences between the competing standards arise around color bit depth and brightness. Dolby Vision films are mastered in up to 12-bit color, whereas HDR 10 is mastered for 10-bit color, hence the name. Films are color graded specifically for Dolby Vision and studios have to provide artistic approval of Dolby's mastering.

Dolby Vision also aims to master films for 10,000 nits of brightness, which to put things in context, is vastly higher than how standard Blu-ray and broadcast television are mastered, which is just 100 nits. HDR 10, on the other hand, masters for around 1,000 nits depending on the content. The extra brightness of HDR televisions is in part how they are able to produce their higher dynamic range through heightened contrast.

At present, there aren't any displays capable of 10,000 nits, so most Dolby Vision content is currently typically mastered to around 4,000 nits. ...

---

4K makes a huge difference if you connect your computer to your TV otherwise no one needs a 4K TV for a few more years.

I think your overreacting a bit, no one is being forced to upgrade to 4K
NTSC to HD was a big upgrade and as prices came down you saw more and more people adopt it.

4K isn't as big of an upgrade but HDR might help make it more appealing.
Still 4K isn't seeing the push you saw with HD, it's only slowly gaining traction, and their is still very little 4K content out there.

I think the transition to 4K will be more a matter of people eventually needing to upgrade their tv's that are dying and the 4K sets being the same price as the 1080p sets (if they can even find any)

I myself want a 4K set eventually, but I'm in no rush at all because the content isn't there, I'm sure I'lll get quite a few more years out of my 1080p setup.

If anyone feels that they need to upgrade, that push is is from within, an early adopter trying to get out lol.

I'm in the market for a new TV, and I've noticed that Vizio seems to be the only TV maker that is building BOTH Dolby Vision HDR and HDR10 support into TV sets that the majority can afford.

Sony and Samsung are following HDR10 only, LG seems to only embrace Dolby. I think I saw a Samsung/Sony set that featured both, but it was nearly $5k.

You can go to your local Worst Buy (*cough* sorry, "Best Buy") and buy a 50" Vizio P-Series for $999** that supports Dolby Vision HDR, HDR10, 4K @ 60 Hz, and all the other latest and greatest bells and whistles (it uses an Android tablet as the main remote!). CNET gave it rave reviews for color and picture accuracy.

** = not shilling for Vizio, just using them as an example. They seem to know what they're doing. BOTH HDR formats need to be available to the masses, that means at a mass-friendly price. People already got gypped buying early 4K TV sets that only do 4K @ 30 Hz... let's not screw people on another format war (although I'm sure the finance departments at these companies wouldn't mind...).

I read that TVs that support Dolby could eventually support HDR10 with a firmware update, even if they don't initially.
I avoided Vizio for years but I got a 60" 1080p refurb from Walmart at a price that makes the TV practically disposable. A year and a half later and I'm very happy with it. The things i notice the most are compressed 1080 sources that don't look as good as 720p (thanks Time Warner). I notice dark corners when there is a solid whit background, but no worse than 60" LCDs of other brands, thanks goes to LCD in general. Also I notice color gradients, as supposedly HDR will address.
So, I'm way more interested in the HDR than 4k, because 1080 sources that look good are already a challenge to find.

Yes, the current P series that was just release a few months ago will be getting the HDR10 update via firmware.

yep, Vizio P Series:»www.rtings.com/tv/review ··· ies-2016

The new Vizios do not support HDR10 yet. They say there will be a firmware upgrade but nothing yet

We love our Vizio 2015 M60-C3! We had to get rid of our 32" Sony KV-32XBR450 finally since that behemoth had sat in our living room like a dinosaur foot for too many oodles of time. Thus it was when the Blue Dot Console was about to arrive that I at last thought, "Hmm, are these newfangled LCD things catching up at last?"
Of course, there were compromises to be made, and bank balances to sweat over but in the end we are now firmly, quite firmly, in the twenty-first century.

Though to be fair, we were the second owners of that Sony XBR ($100CAD) and enjoyed the heck out of it...it was time to enter the land of streaming opportunities, smart this, smart that, and really...60" is pretty darn HUGE when you're used to a now teensy seeming 32". But wow, can it get better? LOL!

4K will take off when the NFL broadcasts all their games in 4K. DirecTV is still struggling to show an occasional baseball game in 4K so I would say we are still a few years off.

It's coming. Hopefully sooon. My P65 is wanting!!