Sound and Vision: What is Samsung’s issue with Dolby Vision?

OPINION : It ’s been a week of announcements in the telecasting market with Samsung , Sony and LG position their cards down for the approaching class .

As usual , some thing have changed while others have bide the same . And one thing that belongs in the “ has n’t changed ” pillar is Samsung ’s reluctance towardsDolby Vision . Given it ’s now one few TV manufacturer to not support it , what is the topic ?

It ’s a enquiry that pops up regularly , but the answer are n’t always the most convincing . If picture timbre and respecting the filmmaker ’s visual modality are key drivers behind your picture quality philosophy , why would n’t a idiot box manufacturer support Dolby Vision ?

For Samsung , I think it ’s down to a few things . Samsung has always quest after a mellow brightness approaching with their QLEDs and now their OLEDs . The philosophy has been hitting a high level of brightness and after color bulk that create a wide regalia of colours that approaches something close to the coloring material we see in workaday spirit . I ’d make the case , that it ’s not always the most accurate , specially if you do n’t have the required number of dimming zones to contribute that mellow brightness under command . It is an area that Dolby Vision , ironically , would serve .

Another reason is that Samsung does not want picture calibre standard prescribe to them by a ‘ black-market box ’ inside their telecasting that decides how an prototype is meant to search . After all , an argument against stimulate Dolby Vision is that if your picture ends up the same ( or similar ) as everyone else , how are you different ?

This reckon about image quality came to me during Samsung ’s Tech Seminar guard in Frankfurt in February . There was a still - to - be - finalizedS95C OLEDalongside anLG G2 OLED , with HDR get over expert Florian Friedrich on hired hand to present a technical school comparison ; a discussion I talk about inanother article on this site .

And what he say about colour volume distortion ( his term ) was convincing . I could see in the footage on both concealment the difference in color between the two , some more clear than others , but people of colour were a little off with the LG – a tint of green where there should n’t be , a lashing of a bluish white when it ought to be a moody blue . Of course , there ’s a difference in processing and I can probably dispute whether some of the setting the idiot box was in , but the gist of the point was interpret . But I still had a nagging thought in the back of my head .

But this was also have into account Samsung ’s high luminosity approach . The footage on both television receiver was in HDR10 , meaning cognitive content was mastered to a maximum of 1000 nits , but would the LG still stick out from the ‘ colour volume torture ’ take if the footage was inDolby Vision ? I ’d play not as my experience is that Dolby Vision would slump the colours ; last year I ’d put an LG G2 next to aSamsung S95Band streamed Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness fromDisney+on both ( Dolby Vision for the LG , stock mode for the Samsung ) , and the result were near identical .

Another face to take into story is that content is not needfully get the hang at top-notch lustrous levels . If anything recent trends have seen films and TV appearance become darker , colourists are tapping into the darker end of the color spectrum rather than the brighter ending . If the Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon picture quality arguing have made unmortgaged , the stress should be to depict sinister image with more limpidity and detail , which again is one that Dolby Vision direct to do .

The other elephant in the elbow room isHDR10 + , the rival to Dolby Vision that Samsung effectively created which is free and does n’t call for a license to utilize . The controversy for HDR10 + is that it is less prescriptive in dictating what the figure should look like , give the display more margin in producing an trope that suits its processing capability . But that makes it more of a TV technology than one that preserve the intent of the creator , and is probable why more content is in Dolby Vision , whether cyclosis or physical mass medium , leave it is the de facto mastering standard .

So it ’s reaching ( if not reached ) a peak where not supporting the HDR format seems ego - defeat . But if Philips , Panasonic and TCL can support both HDR formats , without sacrifice their school of thought to exposure , why ca n’t Samsung ?

Its refusal rather exposes the whole thought of offering the ” best ” delineation quality as the the like of Disney , Apple TV+andNetflixall think Dolby Vision is how they want their message to be seen . Supporting Dolby Vision should n’t be viewed as a loss or defeat , HDR10 + can co - survive with it , and cause Dolby ’s HDR format would make iteasierand well for the consumer , which is what any telecasting manufacturer should be striving . It does n’t see as if Dolby Vision is going to make an appearance on Samsung TVs any time soon , though .