Dolby Vision 2 emerged at CES 2026 with products from Hisense, TCL, and Philips. The rollout follows a two-tier strategy, with standard Dolby Vision 2 targeting mainstream sets and Dolby Vision 2 Max reserved for the highest-performing display
Dolby Vision 2 centers on a new image engine called Content Intelligence, which combines scene-by-scene metadata analysis with display capability data and ambient light input where sensors exist. The system adapts tone mapping and contrast in real time, adjusting midtones and highlights for bright or dark rooms without simply raising gamma.
The platform introduces bi-directional tone mapping, allowing high-end displays to fully exploit their peak brightness and color volume without drifting from the original grading intent. This addresses a persistent challenge in HDR delivery, where consumer displays with capabilities exceeding the mastering monitor could either clip highlights or apply manufacturer-specific tone mapping that deviated from creative intent.
Precision Black targets the long-standing complaint that Dolby Vision content can look “too dark” on many televisions. The system dynamically lifts near-black detail without washing out the image, aiming to preserve shadow definition while maintaining deeper black levels than HDR10 on equivalent hardware.
Dolby Vision 2 and 2 Max
Standard Dolby Vision 2 delivers the new Content Intelligence processing, Precision Black, and bi-directional tone mapping to mainstream price points. Dolby Vision 2 Max unlocks additional capabilities for flagship displays, including Authentic Motion and more aggressive exploitation of 12-bit-capable pipelines and very high peak luminance.
Authentic Motion allows motion treatment to be guided at the content-creation stage rather than left purely to fixed television motion presets. In Dolby Vision 2 Max implementations, it can operate per scene to reduce judder without creating the “soap opera effect” that has long plagued motion interpolation systems. The feature positions filmmakers to standardize cinematic motion handling across brands, potentially reducing the need for viewers to micro-tune motion settings on each display.
The tiered approach reflects the practical reality of display capabilities. Not every panel can benefit from 12-bit processing or extreme peak luminance exploitation, and reserving Max designation for genuinely high-performance hardware maintains meaningful differentiation.
Launch Hardware at CES 2026
Three brand partnerships anchored the Dolby Vision 2 demonstration at CES.
Hisense showed its 2026 RGB MiniLED lineup, including the UX, UR9, and UR8 models, as native Dolby Vision 2 displays. Additional 2026 MiniLED ranges are slated to receive the format via firmware updates. These sets served as the main mass-market showpieces for DV2, pairing high peak brightness MiniLED backlights with the new engine to highlight Precision Black and bi-directional tone mapping benefits on challenging dark HDR scenes.
TCL confirmed its X QD-Mini LED TV series and 2026 C-series as Dolby Vision 2 sets, with support arriving via over-the-air updates on final firmware. The demonstrations emphasized that Dolby Vision 2 is not restricted to ultra-premium price points, showing improved color saturation and highlight detailing versus legacy Dolby Vision on aggressively priced large-screen models.
TP Vision’s Philips OLED lineup, including the OLED811, OLED911, and flagship OLED951, provided the OLED reference implementations for Dolby Vision 2. These sets served as the creator-centric counterpoint to the bright MiniLED demonstrations, highlighting how Content Intelligence and Authentic Motion preserve grading intent on self-emissive panels while still tailoring output to room lighting conditions.
Dolby Vision 2 processing depends on newer system-on-chip platforms and display drivers. MediaTek’s Pentonic-class chipsets with enhanced picture quality engines represent one widely-cited configuration, particularly for higher-tier DV2 Max implementations.
This hardware dependency means most existing Dolby Vision televisions will not receive DV2 via firmware alone, even where manufacturers push updates across their 2026 ranges. The practical Dolby Vision 2 products at CES are therefore almost entirely new-for-2026 models, limiting the installed base expansion to current-year purchases.
The chipset requirements reinforce Dolby’s strategy of making the format as much a software and workflow stack as a static specification. Brands willing to align closely with Dolby’s reference pipelines gain access to the most sophisticated metadata-driven HDR treatment currently available to consumers, albeit with the usual Dolby licensing costs.
Content Ecosystem
Dolby named Peacock as the first streaming service to carry Dolby Vision 2 content, timing the launch to coincide with the 2026 television releases so shipping sets would have real DV2 movies and series to showcase.
Broader studio and platform support was framed as an evolution from existing Dolby Vision workflows rather than a disruptive re-grade requirement. This positioning is critical to securing major streamer and studio adoption, as content providers have historically resisted format transitions that require substantial library re-processing.
The workflow continuity argument addresses a practical concern: studios have invested heavily in Dolby Vision mastering infrastructure, and any next-generation format that required starting over would face significant adoption resistance regardless of technical merit.
At CES 2026, Dolby Vision 2-equipped sets were consistently compared against HDR10+ Advanced and plain HDR10 modes on similar hardware. The consensus from show floor demonstrations held that DV2 currently offers the most sophisticated metadata-driven HDR treatment available to consumers.
The comparison with HDR10+ Advanced is particularly relevant. Samsung’s competing format has gained traction through its royalty-free licensing model and integration across Samsung’s display ecosystem, but lacks the bi-directional tone mapping and content-creation-stage motion guidance that Dolby Vision 2 introduces.
The format competition reflects broader strategic positions. Dolby’s approach favors deep integration with content creation workflows and display calibration, creating ecosystem lock-in through technical sophistication. HDR10+ Advanced offers a more open alternative with lower implementation costs, trading some technical capability for broader accessibility.
Demonstrations on reference-grade Philips OLED and high-brightness Hisense/TCL MiniLED displays showed the most apparent perceptual gains in challenging HDR material: dark interiors with bright light sources, dense shadow textures, and high-contrast specular highlights.
The most obvious improvement on these televisions was more natural blacks and shadow detail coupled with visibly brighter specular highlights, especially in scenes that previously looked crushed or murky in standard Dolby Vision. Shadow definition in films and streaming content more closely matched professional reference monitors while maintaining deeper black levels than HDR10 on the same hardware.
Motion in fast-action sequences appeared cleaner and more stable, especially on the Philips OLED951 and higher-end MiniLED demonstrations, while remaining recognizably cinematic rather than hyper-smooth. Sports demonstrations showed more accurate field and skin tones with less smearing on rapid motion compared with original Dolby Vision modes on equivalent hardware.
The qualitative assessment from CES floor demonstrations suggested the jump from original Dolby Vision to Dolby Vision 2 approaches the magnitude of the initial move from SDR to Dolby Vision on premium displays, particularly in how smoothly gradations and highlight roll-offs are handled.
So, Dolby Vision 2’s arrival concentrates advanced HDR capability with brands willing to pay licensing fees and align with Dolby’s technical requirements, while Samsung continues developing its competing HDR10+ Advanced ecosystem. For consumers, this means display choice increasingly involves implicit format allegiance, with the most sophisticated HDR processing requiring both compatible hardware and compatible content. Sounds like a fun conversation with your local Best Buy employee.
For the display industry, Dolby Vision 2 demonstrates that HDR remains an active area of development rather than a settled specification. The format’s emphasis on content-creation-stage control and environment-aware playback suggests future HDR systems will increasingly blur the line between mastering and display-side processing, with format owners seeking to control the entire chain from camera to screen.
