CES 2017

LG’s First Ultra HD Blu-ray Player Does Dolby Vision

Al Griffin  |  Jan 6, 2017

The first few Ultra HD Blu-ray players to arrive in 2016 had one thing in common: no support for the Dolby Vision high dynamic range format. No surprise there, since Dolby Vision-format movies aren’t yet available on Ultra HD Blu-ray disc.

Now it’s 2017 and things are looking different for Dolby Vision on Ultra HD Blu-ray. Warner, Universal, and Lionsgate have all announced plans to release Dolby Vision movies on disc in early 2017. And hardware manufacturers are following suit at CES by announcing Dolby Vision-compatible players, including LG with its UP970.

In addition to Dolby Vision support, which will arrive via a firmware update LG intends to make available later this year, the UP970 provides dual HDMI outputs to enable separate audio and video connections to a TV and AV receiver. All major streaming services that offer Dolby Vision, including Netflix and Amazon Video, are supported, so viewers should be able to stream compatible online content once LG’s firmware update arrives.

COMMENTS
jnemesh's picture
Submitted by jnemesh on January 6, 2017 - 12:45pm

No one cares about Dolby Vision. It's an OPTIONAL standard on UHD blu-ray, one that not all display manufacturers support, and one that is not demonstrably better than the OPEN HDR10 standard (you can quibble about numbers, but I have YET to see a review with side-by-side comparisons showing the exact same material being evaluated with both formats!).

With the largest display manufactuer (Samsung) outright REJECTING Dolby Vision, the future of the format is relegated to an "enthusiast" offering, like DTS is vs. Dolby Digital. Some will SWEAR DTS is a better format than Dolby Digital...but the reality is that both are pretty equivalent and both get the job done just fine. Anyone who doesn't follow the technology (your average customer) won't care less if Dolby Vision is included or not.

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