Xbox Series X And ​​S Receives Dolby Vision Games Upgrade

Microsoft announced last September that at some point in 2021, its new Xbox Series X and S consoles will receive support for the premium dynamic high-end Dolby Vision format. It has been confirmed that the company is already fulfilling the promise.

Xbox Series X and S owners in the Alpha test ring of consoles have reported that following the latest update (number 2104) sent to their consoles, some Series S / X games in Dolby Vision were played on compatible TVs is.

I signed in to Microsoft after some exciting Series X / S Alpha Ring testers (including Twitter users) @ jujackson79, who also provided other helpful information for this article) started posting on social media about what they see on their Dolby Vision TVs, and the company confirms the development with the following statement:

“As we announced last year, we’m excited to bring Dolby Vision games support to our new Xbox consoles in 2021. The feature is currently being tested and we’ll be announcing more general timing and availability soon. ”

Alpha Ring users report that Dolby Vision currently appears to be supported by four triple AAA titles: Borderlands 3, Rat 5, Wreck Festival and the Halo Master Chief Collection.

Since Dolby Vision apparently needs to be embedded in a title code, rather than being something the console can just add to every game you play, I’m pretty encouraging to support four high profile titles that support it. You should definitely hope that the coming Halo Infinite will get Dolby Vision support as it gets older Halo MCC manages it, and experience suggests that Microsoft always wants to ensure that every Gears title prints the technical envelope.

Initial reports from Alpha Ring gamers suggest that the brightness, black levels and color saturations of Dolby Vision games all look more refined than in their original HDR10 forms. This is what I would expect from the impact that Dolby Vision (which, among other things, adds extra information to the HDR stream to deliver compatible TVs has more accurate and dynamic images) has on video sources.

Microsoft is currently unable to confirm when the Dolby Vision game update will roll out to all Xbox Series X / S consoles; after all, the final release date will depend on how many potential problems with it are discovered during the current public testing phase. But you have to think now that it will dawn on everyone in the first half of 2021.

The timing of Dolby Vision’s arrival on Microsoft’s latest consoles could not be better for the official EMEA Xbox Series X TV partner LG, which has just launched the launch of its 2021 Dolby Vision compatible OLED TVs (my review of the OLED65G1 can be found here). Although in the same way it gives another reminder that Microsoft’s Xbox Series X TV partner for the US and Canada, Samsung, does not support Dolby Vision on any of its TVs.

Look out for more Dolby Vision Series X / S games in the coming weeks.

–

Related reading

Dolby Atmos Games on Xbox and PC: What Games Use It and Why It Matters

Xbox Series X And ​​S is all about Dolby – what about the PS5?

Samsung becomes the official partner of the USA and Canada for the Xbox Series X