We had a chance to meet with Dolby in their suite in the Wynn where they had a number of demonstrations of customer TVs with Dolby Vision along with some Dolby Atmos products as well – plus even some VR.
First we discussed Dolby Atmos. The format is now available on PCs from Lenovo, on the xBox for VR and with British Telecom which is using it for its broadcast of Premier League Football matches.
Turning to Dolby Vision TVs, at CES 2016, there was only one TV that supported the format , from Vizio. At CES 2017, Dolby noted that there will now be TV from LG Electronics (all OLEDs and Super LCDs), Philips, TCL, Skyworth and Sony. LG will also offer the first TV with integrated Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. The Dolby Vision functionality will come to some of these TV later in the year via a software update. On display in the suite were TVs from Philips, Sony, Vizio and LG.
Ultra HD Blu-ray players supporting the optional Dolby Vision format were announced from OPPO, Philips and LG Electronics. It looks as though much of the Dolby Vision functionality in Blu-ray players will come in the second half of the year via a software update. Three studios have committed to master titles in the Dolby Vision format for Ultra HD Blu-ray. There are over 100 titles already mastered in Dolby Vision and we were told that no additional trim pass is needed to master for Blu-ray.
Dolby Vision momentum – click for higher resolution
As for Dolby Cinema, the number of sites has risen from 12 to 65 over the last year with 300 more committed to be built.
A VR demo was shown on a Samsung Gear VR headset and was intended to showcase the use of Dolby Atmos for sound immersion. There is now an Atmos creation tool for VR content creators. The demo was not that impressive, however.
Dolby has had a good year and they are clearly optimistic for 2017 and beyond. – CC
