HDR is “critical” among all the "technical advances" available under the Ultra HD “umbrella,” said a white paper published Wednesday by the Panasonic- and Samsung-led HDR10+ Technologies consortium. “With nearly a half dozen formats vying for attention, only HDR10 has become the most widely adopted platform, utilized across the entertainment and electronics industries.” HDR10+, with its dynamic metadata, “provides even higher performance” than HDR10, which uses only static metadata, it said. HDR10+ enjoys “growing industry support,” with more than 100 companies signed on as HDR10+ adopters, it said.

The CES debut of Dolby Vision IQ as an HDR enhancement feature on LG and Panasonic TVs that compensates for a room’s varying ambient light (see 2001080037) was a surprise Las Vegas announcement. But Dolby Labs applied for the IQ trademark nearly four months ago, Patent and Trademark Office records show. Dolby wants to use the trademark commercially for a wide variety of goods and services, including on cinematic equipment, said its Sept. 20 application. LG’s OLED TVs for 2020 will support IQ, Michelle Fernandez, head-home entertainment brand marketing, told LG’s CES news conference. The feature “extends the benefits of Dolby Vision beyond HDR by intelligently optimizing picture-quality experiences for viewers, regardless of ambient light or content type, all without consumers picking up the remote,” she said.

Dolby Vision IQ debuted at CES, with LG and Panasonic introducing the HDR enhancement technology that compensates for a room’s varying ambient light. Dolby described the feature as “intelligently optimizing picture quality experiences for viewers in any room at every moment, all without consumers picking up their remote.” Gregg Lee, LG senior product training manager, told us on a Tuesday booth walk-through that the feature gives users more control over Dolby Vision HDR, which they previously were unable to adjust. “A lot of times, the TV is in a unique environment -- maybe it’s lighter at one time of day and darker at another.” Dolby Vision IQ is able to look at the environment and compensate for the individual set in real time, he said, while standard Dolby Vision HDR is about matching TV brightness to the content. Dolby said Vision IQ uses Dolby Vision dynamic metadata and the ambient light sensors inside the TV to detect how bright or dark a room is, intelligently displaying every detail of the content so it looks its best. It can also inform the TV what is being watched so when a consumer switches channels, the set will modify its settings to ensure images are displayed as they should be seen. “Without Dolby Vision metadata, TVs are guessing rather than making intelligent scene-by-scene optimizations,” it said. Dolby Vision IQ will be included in LG sets powered by the TV maker's latest Alpha 9 series processors, Lee said.

“Tighter” performance requirements for luminance and color gamut, plus new compliance-test mandates for active dimming, are included in the DisplayHDR specification’s Version 1.1 update, said the Video Electronics Standards Association Wednesday. Companies can begin certifying their products for the V1.1 spec immediately, said VESA. It also will allow V1.0 certifications to continue through May to account for products “already in development,” it said. VESA also added a new “1400 performance level” to the DisplayHDR standard, targeting professional content creators, it said. The new level requires a dynamic contrast ratio that’s 3.5 times greater than the existing 1000 level, it said.

Amazon-branded Fire TVs with Dolby Vision -- announced last week and marking the first time Fire TVs have included Vision -- are part of growing momentum for Dolby's Vision, Atmos and Cinema platforms that are setting the stage for “double-digit revenue growth," wrote Dougherty & Co. analyst Steven Frankel in a Thursday research note. “All year,” Dolby has been expanding its ecosystem, “adding new partners, new devices and more content,” said Frankel, saying the company is operating in a "virtuous circle as broader adoption drives the creation of more content, encourages existing hardware partners to bring technologies like Vision and Atmos to more devices and attracts new licensing partners." He highlighted a $330 starting price for the Dolby Vision Toshiba Fire TV models, the upcoming TiVo Edge for Cable that supports the HDR format and recently launched Lenovo laptops with Dolby Vision. Apple now supports Dolby Vision on smartphones, the iPad Pro, AppleTV 4K and the Mac, Frankel noted, while Atmos is supported on the Mac and AppleTV. Netflix and iTunes continue to expand Atmos and Vision titles, “with little HDR10+ content available other than on UHD Blu-ray discs,” he said. The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, an upcoming original Netflix series in 4K, will also have Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, he said.

Steven Frankel, the analyst who speculated that Panasonic's Dolby Vision support would cast doubt on the market viability of HDR10+ (see 1901140042), works for Dougherty & Co.

Samsung is the only remaining Dolby Vision "holdout" among major TV makers, Wedbush Securities analyst Steven Frankel wrote in a Monday research note to investors, after Panasonic’s CES announcement of Dolby Vision support in its new GZ2000 OLED TV for international distribution. He called that the most important Dolby-related announcement at CES. This adds "yet another manufacturer to the Dolby Vision ranks," said Frankel. More importantly, the "defection" of Panasonic just a year after it first agreed to support HDR10+ as a founding member of the consortium "casts some doubt in our mind around the long-term viability of HDR10+," Frankel said. That's especially true, "given the significant expansion of the Dolby Vision ecosystem seen over the past year." Dolby Vision is supported by 14 of the top 15 TV makers, with Samsung the "lone" exception, he said. Samsung, in a pre-Christmas announcement, said the HDR10+ global "ecosystem" had expanded to 45 "industry partners," including support from TV makers Hisense and TCL in China. Panasonic also remains an HDR10+ supporter. The analyst cited the irony of Samsung’s surprise CES announcement (see 1901070062) for support of Apple’s iTunes on select TVs “with Apple being a high profile supporter of Dolby Vision.” The growing number of Dolby Vision titles offered by Apple won’t be playable on the Samsung TVs, which will see HDR10 versions instead, he said. Konka also announced Dolby Vision support at CES, showing an OLED TV incorporating both Dolby Vision and DolbyAtmos, joining LG and TCL, which are building sets incorporating both technologies. Atmos content, meanwhile, is stacking up with DirecTV broadcasting select NBA games in the immersive audio format and adoption growing in the gaming market, said Frankel. Among the wide-ranging new Atmos sound bars shown at the CES: a $230 Anker model, Klipsch’s Bar 54A and Sennheiser’s $2,499 13-speaker “behemoth.”

Panasonic’s announced support of Dolby Vision for its flagship GZ2000 OLED TV, targeted to markets outside North America, is evidence of Dolby’s influence in HDR, Dougherty & Co. analyst Steven Frankel wrote investors Tuesday. Headed into CES, only Panasonic and Samsung had announced support for Dolby Vision, said Frankel. The GZ2000 is the first to support both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, “signaling that, given the vastness of its content ecosystem, it needs to support Dolby Vision,” Frankel said. The TV also supports HLG Photo. Also notable is the GZ2000’s support of Dolby Atmos through Technics-engineered speakers built into the set rather than in an external sound bar. Panasonic consulted with Company 3 CEO Stefan Sonnenfeld, a Hollywood colorist, on the professional-grade TV, which also has voice assistant support, it said.

CEDIA released An Integrator’s Guide to HDR Video, available for download at the trade group's resource library for $99. Discussed are fundamentals of HDR and how it relates to human vision, plus standards, formats and connectivity. Two more white papers will be released this year as part of CEDIA's initiative to create standards, develop best practices and define guidelines for the custom integration channel.

Dougherty & Co. analyst Steven Frankel maintained a buy rating on Dolby, in a research note to investors Wednesday before the company’s Oct. 24 quarterly earnings report, but he warned the company’s switch to ASC 606 reporting guidelines could “complicate” FY 19 guidance. During the quarter, Dolby expanded its ecosystem, going mainstream with the Dolby Vision-enabled Amazon 4K Fire TV stick ($50) and several new Atmos sound bars. Frankel also cited a growing number of Dolby Vision titles from iTunes and Netflix, along with enhanced device support on the Xbox One and Apple TV 4K.