AT IFA 2025 last week, Dolby Laboratories had some exciting news in store with the announcement that it’s about to unleash a newer and more advanced version of its popular HDR format Dolby Vision, promising to take picture enhancement to previously unseen levels.
While the company has been somewhat ambiguous regarding the specific enhancements to Dolby Vision 2, we do know that there will be two variants – regular Dolby Vision 2 and Dolby Vision 2 Max, which, as the name suggests, maximises the performance of those new enhancements.
Last week, Dolby spoke about a new Content Intelligence engine that’s powered by AI algorithms that work to constantly adjust the on-screen image based on the ambient light conditions in whatever environment the physical TV is in. There’s also a new Precision Black feature that’s meant to make dark scenes more visible, so the details can be seen without impacting on the content creator’s artistic intent. Other enhancements include superior, scene-by-scene motion controls to eliminate motion-based artefacts and improved tone mapping capabilities for better colour handling and brightness.
At IFA 2025, Dolby announced that Hisense is its official launch partner and, therefore, Hisense’s TVs will be among the first to support Dolby Vision 2. They include Hisense’s new 116-inch RBG-MiniLED TV and also, it seems, that company’s upcoming U9 series TVs, which also feature RGB LED display technology. But Dolby didn’t say if any other TV brands are working on integrating Dolby Vision 2.
Surprisingly, it seems that neither of the South Korean powerhouses are going to bother with the new format for now, but TCL and Sony both hinted that they may launch their first Dolby Vision 2 sets next year.
This comes from Techradar journalist Matt Bolton, who set out to discover the position of major TV brands while attending the IFA 2025 show last week. LG, it turns out, was the only top TV brand to declare that it doesn’t have any concrete plans to add support for Dolby Vision 2, and it also stated that the new format is not backwards compatible, so it won’t be coming to its older TVs via a firmware upgrade either.
LG’s statement is in direct contrast to Hisense, which said last week that it does plan to bring Dolby Vision 2 to some of its older models. However, it seems Hisense will only be able to do this to a select number of TVs powered by MediaTek’s latest Pentonic 800 processor. The problem is that Dolby Vision 2 requires specialised hardware that’s only available on that chip, which is not found in any of LG’s TVs.
Because LG needs to upgrade its own chipsets, it therefore seems unlikely that the company will bother with Dolby Vision 2 anytime soon, if only because there’s no native Dolby Vision 2 content available at this time. So it could well put off any upgrade for a couple of years, until that changes.
Samsung declined to comment on Dolby Vision 2, but it would seem highly unlikely that it has any plans relating to it, considering it does not even support the regular Dolby Vision. As one of the main backers of the rival HDR10+ format, Samsung has long-resisted implementing Dolby’s tech in its TVs, and that policy is probably not going to change anytime soon. If anything, it’ll be busy working on an upgraded HDR10+ to counter Dolby’s upgrade.
There is, however, more promise from TCL and Sony. TCL declined to respond to Bolton’s question, but one of its unnamed prototype TVs on display at IFA 2025 dropped a pretty big hint that it might be up to something, with a huge banner underneath it proclaiming “Dolby Vision 2.0”.
Sony was more forthcoming, telling Bolton that Dolby is an “important” partner and that it’s holding discussions with it about Dolby Vision 2. However, its reluctance to provide a clear answer suggests that it’s busy investigating the feasibility of the upgrade on its 2026 TVs.
Bolton also investigated the prospects of Dolby Vision 2 appearing on other devices, such as projectors, smartphones and Blu-ray media players, but was told by Dolby’s senior product manager Aaron Drew that the current focus is on TV, though he added that there will be “more to talk about in the future”.
While no Dolby Vision 2 projectors have been announced thus far, it seems that the prospects for this are good, because many modern projectors nowadays use the same processors as TVs, so it’s only a matter of upgrading to the latest MediaTek chip.
But fans of physical media could be in for a long wait, due to the fact that the market’s growth has been derailed by the rise of streaming platforms like Netflix. While Blu-ray device makers may well contemplate Dolby Vision 2 support, the question remains when will this happen, for they haven’t exactly been in a hurry to launch new models lately.
For instance, Panasonic’s last 4k Blu-ray player was introduced in 2021, and it hasn’t launched an updated model since then. Sony did launch a new model this year, although that was really just a slightly refreshed version of an older model that dates back to 2019, so we may have to wait several years before it announces anything new. Even Magnetar, known for its high-end Blu-ray players, waited four years to update its flagship players.
In fact, it announced two new models last week at the CEDIA Expo 2025 in Denver, USA, but it didn’t mention Dolby Vision 2. Given those devices are brand new, we won’t be holding our breath for a newer model anytime soon.
