Samsung is behind some of the best TVs in the world. It’s also the only major TV-maker to outright reject one of the most sought-after features on TVs today.
Since the format’s inception, Samsung has refused to support Dolby Vision, one of the most popular ways to experience HDR content. The brand’s TVs are better than ever, but to home theater enthusiasts and cinephiles around the world, their lack of Dolby Vision support is a glaring omission.
With the recent announcement of Dolby Vision 2 — an updated version of the format that will soon be making its way to the top-tier TVs of tomorrow — the time has come for Samsung to embrace Dolby Vision.
Why Dolby Vision matters
Dolby Vision is a version of HDR that leverages metadata embedded within content. This metadata tells your TV how the picture should look on a moment-to-moment basis, ensuring that the show or movie looks as close to what the creator intended as possible.
But Dolby Vision licensing comes at a cost — one that Samsung hasn’t been willing to pay. Instead, the TV-maker equips its HDR-capable TVs with HDR10+, a royalty-free HDR format that essentially works in a similar fashion to Dolby Vision.
As a result, while Samsung TVs are equipped to showcase the relatively limited amount of HDR10+-mastered content out in the wild on various platforms, they’re not equipped to do so for Dolby Vision, the more popular of the two formats.
If you queue up a Dolby Vision-mastered movie or TV show — on, say, Netflix — your HDR-ready Samsung TV won’t quite be showing it in the way it was technically meant to be seen. Depending on the TV, the content in question might still look incredible, but it won’t have the Dolby Vision seal of approval.
So, does Dolby Vision support matter? It depends on who you ask.
There’s a gaping, Dolby Vision-shaped hole at the center of every Samsung TV.
For many people, a Samsung TV’s lack of Dolby Vision means very little, and it’s easy to see why. TV marketing terms are notoriously complicated — why should one less feature matter, especially if the TV looks good?
For some A/V enthusiasts, though, the perspective is different: There’s a gaping, Dolby Vision-shaped hole at the center of every Samsung TV, and this omission ought to be carefully considered when figuring out which TV is worth buying.
Regardless of where you land in this (admittedly nerdy) debate, one thing is very much true: Since the quality of Dolby Vision content ultimately comes down to the performance capabilities of any given TV, the question of whether or not Dolby Vision is worth it is more relevant the higher up you shop.
And, since the soon-to-be-released Dolby Vision 2 is designed in part to meet the performance of rapidly improving, high-end TVs, there’s never been a more opportune time for the prominent TV brand to get on board.
Will Samsung TVs support Dolby Vision 2?
There’s no indication that Samsung is gearing up to bring Dolby Vision or Dolby Vision 2 support to any of its current or upcoming TVs, and while it wouldn’t surprise me if that were to suddenly change, I would be just as unsurprised if Samsung TVs remained Dolby Vision-free for years to come.
The recent rollout of HDR10+ content on Netflix represents a sizable boon for the royalty-free Dolby Vision alternative — and for Samsung TV owners who stream their fair share of Netflix shows.
But the advent of Dolby Vision 2 presents an opportunity for Samsung to adopt the format, and for some of its top-performing TVs to add the only significant feature they’ve been missing for several years.
The Samsung S95F OLED, for instance, is one of the best TVs of the year — OLED or otherwise. Its picture quality is among the best I’ve ever seen, and it’s packed with enough gaming features to remain a powerful gaming TV for years to come.
But, like all Samsung TVs, the S95F snubs Dolby Vision. If I was in the market for an ultra-premium TV, I wouldn’t let this get in my way from buying it, but there are plenty of folks out there who would.
If Samsung were to incorporate Dolby Vision 2 support in future TVs — even just the top-tier sets — it would change the calculus for a certain type of shopper.
A total adoption of the format for all or most of its TV lineup might change the course of Dolby Vision’s future, too.
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