'There's no realistic chance all of that content will get remastered from scratch': Dolby Vision 2 will come to more titles than you might expect, thanks to an automated process — but there will be two key creative-led features that aren't automated

Streaming services will be able to upgrade Dolby Vision to Dolby Vision 2 without a remaster, but some data can't be added automatically

by · TechRadar

News By Matt Bolton Contributions by Carrie Marshall Published 15 August 2026

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  • Dolby says that Dolby Vision HDR movies can be upgraded to Dolby Vision 2 using an automated process based on the existing mastering information
  • This means support may be more widespread than expected, since apparently it will be relatively low-effort for streamers to achieve
  • The Authentic Motion and Precision Black features will be excluded from this, because Dolby says they they require human judgment to get right

If you're wondering where all the Dolby Vision 2 media is going to come from, we've got good news: it's already here, at least partly. Dolby Laboratories told me that it's created a process that can upgrade existing Dolby Vision media to add most features of the new HDR standard using an automated process based on the existing mastering data — and there are only two key features that are excluded, because they're areas that depend on new input from creators.

With Dolby Vision 2 arriving on TVs from this month, I caught up with Dolby Laboratories' director of business strategy, Jonas Klittmark, to find out the details: what it could do for 4K Blu-rays, what benefits it'll bring to streaming and most importantly of all, what to watch.

One of the biggest concerns with Dolby Vision 2 is that creators just won't be inclined to master video for it when it doesn't have widespread support — but it's unlikely to get widespread support if there's no content. But it turns out that existing Dolby Vision masters can be adapted to use many of its features without being reworked.

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"There is a bunch of new features in Dolby Vision 2 that don't rely on new content at all," Turkstra told me. "Because you already have all the Dolby Vision content in the world... the streaming providers will have more to say about this later, but the existing Dolby Vision library will start to get converted and the new metadata for Dolby Vision 2 will be added."

The Hisense UR8 is one of the first TVs to support Dolby Vision 2 — but there needs to content to make it worthwhile… (Image credit: Future)

Klittmark estimates that there are around 33,000 movies and TV show episodes available in Dolby Vision. "There's no realistic chance that all that content is going to get remastered from scratch," he says.

"The cost of doing that is just astronomical. So what we're offering instead is a semi-automated way of doing it where we're using modern techniques such as machine learning to assist in the creation of the additional metadata that's needed to make the most of Dolby Vision 2."

He elaborated that "many of the features, including the image engine, including the new version of LightSense, the intensity control, the pro settings, and sports optimization, all of those features can work through a combination of existing metadata."

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