September 4, 2025, 6:33 am | Read time: 4 minutes
Dolby has announced a new generation of its HDR format, Dolby Vision 2. Like its predecessor, it aims to give filmmakers more control over how their works appear on users’ devices. New is the “Content Intelligence,” which is designed to adapt content to the individual playback environment.
Why Does Dolby Vision Need a Successor?
For more than ten years, Dolby Vision has been one of the most widely used HDR formats in the film industry. It allows filmmakers to ensure their content is displayed on devices like TVs, tablets, and smartphones as intended. However, these HDR specifications do not affect the environment in which a device is located. If the lighting conditions are unsuitable, even the best black tone mixing is ineffective. Naturally, creators would prefer viewers to watch movies and series in darkened rooms with super-bright OLED TVs. But this is rarely the reality. As a result, many people could barely see anything in Nolan’s “Tenet” or the Battle of Winterfell from “Game of Thrones.” Creators can see everything in their master, while viewers see black.
Read more: What is HDR and how does it work?
“Content Intelligence” Aims to Solve Image Problems
Dolby Vision 2 aims to bridge the gap between HDR specification and output. The new feature, called “Content Intelligence,” consists of several technologies. Using artificial intelligence, it is supposed to automatically adjust the image to the content and environment.
Advertisement
The issue of overly dark content is addressed by Dolby with Precision Black. This feature aims to make the image “crystal clear”—regardless of the environment and in line with the artistic intent. The function works hand in hand with Light Sense, which detects ambient light and compares it with the reference lighting from the content’s metadata to enhance image quality. For sports and gaming, where a faster frame rate is advantageous compared to cinematic content, Content Intelligence offers motion control. For high-end displays, bidirectional tone mapping allows filmmakers to more precisely control how a TV uses its brightness and color reserves—without distorting their vision.
QLED, 8K, HDR, Micro-LED: What Do These TV Acronyms Mean?
This setting ensures smooth sports streaming
Dolby Vision 2 Comes with Its Own Motion Smoothing
In response to one of the biggest points of contention between the film and home theater industries, Dolby Vision 2 introduces Authentic Motion. Dolby calls it “the world’s first creatively driven motion-control tool to make scenes appear more authentically cinematic, shot by shot, without unwanted stuttering, setting by setting.” For several years, TV manufacturers have been shipping their devices with so-called motion smoothing. The function interpolates the frame rate—usually to 60 frames per second. This makes the image run more smoothly than at 24 frames per second, which is the de facto standard in the film industry. Users appreciate the function because they are familiar with smooth frame rates from smartphones, gaming, and platforms like YouTube and Instagram. After all, they often record videos with their smartphone cameras at 60 frames per second.
Cinema enthusiasts and filmmakers, however, have been opposing it for years. Critics of the feature decry the “soap opera effect,” which makes content appear hyper-realistic and less cinematic—thus distorting the artistic intent. In 2018, Tom Cruise personally took to X (formerly Twitter) to request that motion smoothing be turned off on TVs for his blockbuster “Top Gun: Maverick.”
Through scene-by-scene control with Authentic Motion, Dolby aims to give creators more control over when and where motion smoothing is used—if at all. However, it remains questionable whether this can counteract the general trend of users activating the function on their TVs and never turning it off again.
Do I Need a New TV Now?
Existing Dolby Vision TVs will continue to play all current Dolby Vision content. However, to use the new features, you will need a device that explicitly supports Dolby Vision 2. Not only must it have light sensors for ambient detection, but it also needs the capability to read the additional metadata required for Content Intelligence.
For AI-supported image tuning, additional shadow details, creator-driven tone mapping, and the new motion representation, customers will need to opt for a device with the Dolby Vision 2 label in the future. Hisense has already announced corresponding smart TVs as the first manufacturer. However, the first models are unlikely to appear before 2026.