Dolby Vision is the premium HDR format. It does everything hdr10 does — wider colours, deeper blacks, brighter highlights — but adds dynamic, scene-by-scene metadata that tells the TV exactly how to map brightness for every shot, not just the whole movie. It also supports up to 12-bit colour (vs 10-bit in HDR10), eliminating banding even on the most demanding gradients.
In the streaming market, Dolby Vision is the de-facto premium HDR badge. Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+, Max and almost every other major service ship their tentpole content in it. Hardware-wise, it's supported across all Apple devices, most premium TVs (LG, Sony, TCL, Hisense, Vizio), gaming consoles (Xbox Series X/S), and most streaming sticks. The notable holdout for years has been Samsung, which backs the rival hdr10-plus format instead.
The catch: Dolby Vision is licensed. Device makers, encoder vendors and streaming platforms pay Dolby per device or per stream. That's why HDR10 still exists as the universal fallback — every Dolby Vision title is also encoded in HDR10 so non-licensed devices can still play it. For a streaming product, the practical choice in 2026 is "ship HDR10 baseline always, ship Dolby Vision on top when you can afford the licence and when your content quality justifies the premium badge".
