Announced in September, Microsoft has now publicly released the update that adds Dolby Vision support for streaming apps on Xbox One. However, it is not compatible with all TVs.
Dolby Vision on Xbox One
Xbox One has just become the first game console to support Dolby Vision, Microsoft said. However, at this time, Dolby Vision is only supported for Netflix - potentially other streaming apps soon.
It does appear, though, that Microsoft is planning wider support that also includes gaming. The company explains that it has been working with Dolby to develop "an implementation tailored to game consoles".
- ”As the first game console to adopt Dolby Vision technology, Dolby, in partnership with Microsoft, developed an implementation tailored to game consoles. This leverages the power of Xbox to process and render Dolby Vision content, before sending over to the TV. With the Xbox handling most of the processing, this creates a framework to deliver an optimal Dolby Vision experience for our users,” said Microsoft.
It should be stressed that this new "low latency profile" is not compatible with all Dolby Vision TVs. LG’s 2016 TVs as well as Vizio TVs are notably missing from the list of supported devices. Microsoft claims that Dolby is getting ”working with TV OEMs to update TVs currently in market”.
- ”So why do some TVs support Dolby Vision on Xbox while others don’t? When TVs were originally enabled for Dolby Vision, gaming consoles weren’t part of the HDR ecosystem. Since then, some TV manufacturers are working to implement support for Dolby Vision on game consoles, and Dolby is working with TV OEMs to update TVs currently in market. Dolby will continue to list TVs supporting Dolby Vision for Xbox as they are available,” the company explained.
Dolby maintains a list of supported TVs here. These TVs support the low latency DV profile used for Xbox’s implementation.
You may recall that this is not the first time that the Dolby Vision system has been plagued by incompatibility issues. When Sony introduced the format in its TVs, many playback devices were incompatible. Some of these have since been updated.
The Xbox One October update also adds Amazon Alexa compatibility. Again, this is limited to Netflix but will be expanded over time, Microsoft promised.
Xbox One S and One X as well as PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro already support the HDR10 format but is this the first step towards gaming in Dolby Vision? It certainly seems plausible.
