Dolby Vision started working with 3D at home - but only on head-mounted displays

According to Dolby, “Profile 20 is the first Dolby Vision profile to support MV-HEVC and enable stereoscopic (3D) video. All other Dolby Vision profiles only support monoscopic (2D) video." To this it was added that "Currently, the recently announced Apple Vision Pro is the only device that supports stereoscopic HDR 3D video playback using the Dolby Vision 20 profile."

Until now, 3D was available in Dolby Cinema laser cinemas. At home, such films can already be watched through Apple Vision Pro - there is a merger between the two companies to promote the Dolby Vision 20 profile, which is designed to display 3D video on head-mounted displays (HMDs). It is clear that creating 3D Dolby Vision content is a significant software and hardware challenge. Disney studio was one of the first to receive such opportunities, although it is known that similar equipment is already available to other “early partners.”

Another issue is channel capacity. It’s not for nothing that until now 3D was limited to 1080p resolution and SDR (Blu-ray discs or Vudu streaming). In addition, we are not yet talking about support for 3D specifications for HDR10 and HDR10+. Released in 2014, MV-HEVC is limited to 8-bit SDR. Its capabilities will obviously expand when the MV-HEVC Main10 10-bit extension is introduced in April 2024 (if all goes according to plan).

In any case, the Dolby Vision 20 profile is not backward compatible with existing Dolby Vision systems. And although for now we are only talking about headsets, end users, following the studios, will have to think about a fundamental change in equipment.