Ask S&V

A I own an Ultra HDTV but am still using a regular Blu-ray player. I have no interest in buying Ultra HD Blu-ray Discs but would like to get the benefits of the HDR 10 and Dolby Vision High Dynamic Range (HDR) formats on my TV. Would an Ultra HD Blu-ray player apply HDR 10 and Dolby Vision HDR effects when upscaling regular Blu-rays to 4K, or are those benefits only available with Ultra HD discs? —Jason BF / via e-mail

Q No. Viewing high dynamic range movies requires that the source material be mastered for HDR playback, and that means it’s presently limited to the Ultra HD disc format, which recently started to gain Dolby Vision titles. (Prior to June 2017, HDR movies on Ultra HD Blu-ray were exclusively in the HDR10 format.) HDR content is also available for streaming from sites like Netflix, Vudu, and Amazon Video. You can probably access one or more of those directly from your TV. Alternatively, you can use an Ultra HD Blu-ray player that supports streaming apps, or an HDR-compatible streaming device such as the Roku Ultra.