Dolby has been explaining why DV2 shipped in two flavours, and the split is a licensing decision wearing a product decision costume. Dolby Vision 2 Max is meant to take over the premium slot that plain Dolby Vision holds today. Standard Dolby Vision 2 is the cheaper licence, aimed at sets that skipped DV entirely because the licence cost more than the margin on the TV.
The claim I keep chewing on is that this is the cheapest picture quality upgrade a manufacturer can buy, cheaper than a better panel and cheaper than new backlighting. Their demo for that is two 300 dollar TVs side by side, one running DV1 and one running DV2. If that comparison survives outside a controlled demo room it is a fair argument, because the problem with a 300 dollar TV was never the metadata standard, it was the panel, and yet metadata is the only part of the chain you can improve for a couple of dollars a set.
There is a floor, at least. Full HD sets will not be allowed and there is a requirements list to meet, so this is not landing on the absolute bottom shelf. The real gate is silicon. The MediaTek Pentonic 800 is currently the only chip that does DV2, which is why Hisense and TCL got there first, and Dolby says more chips are coming and that the Pentonic 800 will drift down into cheaper models over time.
Which means nothing changes on shelves until 2027 sets, realistically. So what happens to the budget TV somebody buys this month? Nothing at all. It is DV1 for life, and it will be sitting next to a set that costs the same and does more, twelve months from now.
The claim I keep chewing on is that this is the cheapest picture quality upgrade a manufacturer can buy, cheaper than a better panel and cheaper than new backlighting. Their demo for that is two 300 dollar TVs side by side, one running DV1 and one running DV2. If that comparison survives outside a controlled demo room it is a fair argument, because the problem with a 300 dollar TV was never the metadata standard, it was the panel, and yet metadata is the only part of the chain you can improve for a couple of dollars a set.
There is a floor, at least. Full HD sets will not be allowed and there is a requirements list to meet, so this is not landing on the absolute bottom shelf. The real gate is silicon. The MediaTek Pentonic 800 is currently the only chip that does DV2, which is why Hisense and TCL got there first, and Dolby says more chips are coming and that the Pentonic 800 will drift down into cheaper models over time.
Which means nothing changes on shelves until 2027 sets, realistically. So what happens to the budget TV somebody buys this month? Nothing at all. It is DV1 for life, and it will be sitting next to a set that costs the same and does more, twelve months from now.
