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When Dolby Labs announced Dolby Vision 2 in September 2025, I didn’t really get it. The original Dolby Vision was easy to understand: If your TV and streaming content supported it, you’d get a brighter picture with more color detail, particularly in shadows and highlights. I remember being blown away by the technology when it first debuted at CES 2014, especially compared to the 4K displays and curved panels that TV makers were hyping up at the time. The improvements Dolby Vision 2 promises aren’t as straightforward. While Dolby’s initial press release uses all kinds of jargon to describe the new format (with terms like “Content Intelligence” and “Authentic Motion”), the tangible benefits are tougher to parse. Fortunately, CES 2026 provided an opportunity to see Dolby Vision 2 up close, compare it with the original Dolby Vision, and get some questions answered. While Dolby Vision 2’s benefits are a bit murkier, they at least address some annoyances with streaming video today. Dolby Vision 2 deals with HDR’s darkness issues HDR (high dynamic range) is a feature in many modern TVs that allows for greater differences between the darkest and brightest parts of an image, with more color detail in between. With HDR, for example, a scene depicting an explosion will exude more vivid reds and oranges, instead of blown-out whites, while HDR in a shadowy scene will be rendered with evocative blue and green hues, instead of just depicting a muddy gray. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work. But with every HDR format—the original Dolby Vision along with HDR10, HDR10+, and HLG (Hybrid Log Gamma)—a common complaint is that dark scenes can look too dark. Dolby’s solution is to gather more data about how the content was made—for instance, the creator’s choice of reference monitor, or how much ambient light was in the color-grading room—and adjust brightness on playback accordingly. The idea is to compensate for the difference between what creators see in their expensive editing suites and what viewers see on their TVs at home. Jared Newman / Foundry “We know exactly what shadows were meant to be seen, and not,” said Dolby’s director of business strategy, Jonas Klittmark. Dolby Vision 2 aims to make HDR look better on cheaper TVs While the original Dolby Vision typically required a mid-range or better TV, Dolby is optimizing this new version for cheaper sets through a new tone-mapping engine. This combines additional metadata from creators with local tone mapping, which makes more granular adjustments to the colors of each pixel. Local tone mapping is the process of analyzing the wide range of color of brightness in an HDR image, and then compressing that data into a form that the TV you’re watching can actually deliver. In a demo at CES, the result was a noticeable difference on what Dolby claimed was a $250 TV that didn’t have any local dimming zones. Next to a comparable set running the original Dolby Vision, the new version produced more vivid colors. Jared Newman / Foundry “The new engine is just much more capable of holding onto the goodness of the original HDR source, even on a display that’s quite limited in its capabilities, like this,” Klittmark said. That same tone-mapping engine also gives Dolby Vision 2 a neat new trick: It’ll let users control the intensity of the HDR effect through a slider in their TV settings. Users might want to increase the effect in a window-lit room with lots of reflections, for instance, or dial it back if the picture seems too eye-searingly bright. Dolby Vision 2 allows for smoother motion (without overdoing it) One of the most intriguing Dolby Vision 2 features has nothing to do with HDR at all. Instead, it’s a feature called “Authentic Motion,” which makes for a less jerky picture in scenes with fast motion (the industry refers to this visual jerkiness as “judder”). Unlike the much-maligned motion smoothing effects on most smart TVs, which can be so smooth that it looks like you’re watching a soap opera, Dolby’s feature applies just a small amount of frame interpolation in certain scenes, based on metadata delivered by content providers. In a CES demo, Dolby showed a movie scene in which the camera swept across the room without the usual judder, but in a way that still felt cinematic. “In Dolby Vision 2, we’re dynamically through metadata setting the de-judder just enough to take the edge off of the judder, so that it doesn’t bother you anymore,” Klittmark said. Dolby Vision 2 Max Alongside the standard Dolby Vision 2, there will also be a fancier version called Dolby Vision 2 Max. While both versions will have mostly the same features, Dolby Vision 2 Max will further adjust the picture based on a TV’s ambient light sensors; for example, it will help to avoid scenes that look overly dark. This is effectively an evolution of Dolby Vision IQ, an extension of Dolby Vision that is available in many of today’s mid-range to high-end TVs. More importantly, Dolby believes Max will serve as an overall indicator of TV quality, in the same way it believes Dolby Vision once did. When Dolby Vision first arrived in the mid-2010s, many TVs promised HDR compatibility, but weren’t bright or colorful enough to make HDR video look good. Dolby Vision support became a useful proxy for knowing if you’d get a decent HDR picture. Now that Dolby Vision 2 is heading to lower-end TVs, Dolby hopes the “Max” label will help delineate TVs with superior picture quality. “Dolby Vision 2 Max is for premium TVs, and it will basically replace Dolby Vision in the market,” Chris Turkstra, Dolby’s vice president of home devices, said. “Dolby Vision 2, which you can think of as a standard version of Dolby Vision, that will attach to new TVs that don’t have Dolby Vision today.” It’ll be a while before Dolby Vision 2 matters While it’s worth being aware of Dolby Vision 2 as more TV makers and streaming services get on board, it’s still early days for the format. So far, only three TV makers have committed to supporting Dolby Vision 2: Hisense will offer it in its top-shelf RGB MiniLED TVs for 2026, TCL will have it in its high-end X11L SQD Mini LEDs and mainstream C series sets, and Panasonic will bring it to several new OLED TVs. In other words, the promise of Dolby Vision 2 in low-end TVs isn’t materializing anytime soon. Meanwhile, three other major TV manufacturers–LG, Samsung, and Sony–have not announced their Dolby Vision 2 intentions. Samsung, for one, doesn’t support any version of Dolby Vision today–most likely because it doesn’t want to pay royalties to Dolby. On the content side, Peacock is the only streaming service on board with Dolby Vision 2, which it will support along with the original Dolby Vision for live sports. Given that content makers must also support Dolby Vision 2 in the editing process, it might be a while before more streamers decide to throw their weight behind it. Dolby Vision 2 probably won’t be a factor for anyone thinking of buying a new TV in 2026. But as the format becomes more common in the years to come, it’s something you’ll want to think about, especially if, like me, you finally understand it. Sign up for Jared’s Cord Cutter Weekly newsletter for more streaming TV advice. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Free 10GB plan Affordable monthly and yearly plans Attractive, easy cross-platform client software Virtual drive allows access directly from Windows Explorer Versioning for both sync and backup Cons No online editing Limited preview compatibility File retention settings are global, not per job Our Verdict Icedrive is one of the slickest online storage services available. There’s no online editing, but there are online previews, sharing, and competitive pricing. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Retailer Price Icedrive $6 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Icedrive online storage Retailer Price Icedrive $6 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Check today’s prices There are a lot of choices in online backup these days, so users can pick and choose the easiest and most affordable. Icedrive competes well on both fronts — proving to be one of my favorites to use. This is my second review of the service, with a look at some features that were formerly in beta. Color me impressed. Read on to learn more, then see our roundup of the best online backup services to learn about competing products. What are Icedrive’s features? As with any online storage vendor, Icedrive’s primary feature is providing an offsite repository for your files. However, it also sports collaboration features such as file sharing, public links, and file requests (others asking to see your files). In addition to its facility for syncing files, Icedrive’s client-side software provides an optional virtual drive. You can change the drive letter but it defaults to I: (Icedrive, “I:”, get it?), which is good enough in my book. Icedrive in action under Windows. The virtual drive acts as a local portal to your online files, as well as an encrypted folder that utilizes a secondary password or passphrase that you define. Icedrive doesn’t have access to this passphrase, so don’t lose or forget it. iOS and Android apps are also provided, so you can back up your phone or other mobile devices. My one caveat here is the lack of a Sync tab as on the Windows client. Instead mobile backups (it’s not traditional sync) are defined under the settings tab — the last place I looked. Icedrive on and iPhone Speaking of such, in addition to the two-way syncing virtual drive, Icedrive’s Windows client offers what it calls “Full sync” and “Backup.” The former is two-way sync and the latter is one-way sync. Both use versioning, which is a bit odd for two-way sync. File versioning can serve as a kind of ad hoc backup: Older files are kept just in case. Icedrive does it better than most. Instead of moving the older file to a visible sub-directory, or renaming the older file and leaving it in plain view (this can get messy with a lot of versions), it retains the files out of sight. IceDrive was very quick to spot new and changed files. Shown are the older versions of this test file. Sync is enhanced with the choice to delete files locally (or not) after they are deleted online (mirroring the online version), and to delete files online (or not) after they were deleted locally (mirroring the local data repository). Select both and you’re in effect doing “Full sync,” or two-way sync. Alas, the delete options are not available on a per-sync job basis — they apply to all sync pairs. Icedrive offers an online document preview feature that handles many common types. PDF, JPEG, MP3, Wave, and even FLAC/OGG/M4A (lossless included) play just fine, so an A for audio file support. It still, however, will not correctly display my Excel spreadsheets. No editing of said documents is available, so if you’re looking to work online, Icedrive is likely not your cup of tea. At least for now. That said, Icedrive doesn’t make claims in this regard. As simple storage with easy access, it’s a winner. How easy is it to use Icedrive? Icedrive is easy to get up to speed with, once you understand all the sync/backup options. If you know the ins and outs of sync already, that shouldn’t take long. The Icedrive virtual drive for macOS and Linux relies on the public domain macFUSE driver — a separate download. OpenDrive for Apple machines also relies on this macOS extension, which seems to work well. To access your encrypted folder from the “local” I: drive, you must enter the passphrase online, then open the local client and under the Mount tab, choose Crypto Lock, and enter the passphrase. Simple, and after that, it’s all transparent. Icedrive is easy to get up to speed with, once you understand all the sync/backup options. Icedrive’s Encrypted folder provides a private second layer of security for important or sensitive data. Dragging a few files to the IceDrive Virtual Drive is certainly the easiest way to upload them, but there’s local caching going on so you can eat up disk space (especially important with internal SSDs) in a hurry. You can move the cache file to an external location, and there’s also an “upload” context menu option that bypasses the major caching and copies the files directly online. Sadly, this context menu item is not available for the Mac. On that platform you’ll need to upload using a sync pair to avoid local caching. Icedrive’s virtual drive is your window into your online storage. Some is cached locally, Note that you can set the online storage as read-only if you want to be sure files don’t get mucked up. How much does Icedrive cost? The five-year plans that the company once featured are gone, while the monthly and yearly options remain. Simpler is generally better when you’re trying to support a large number of users, no doubt. The five-year plans have been dropped in favor of pure annual and monthly rates. The monthly plans as of this writing are $8 for 1TB and $20 for 5TB, while annual prices at the time of this writing are: $29 for 2TB (discounted from $99), $49 for 4TB (discounted from $159), and $99 for 6TB (down from $269). The discounted yearly plans I saw are outstanding values and there’s always the free 10GB plan (without the encrypted folder) so you can kick the tires. Note that the discounts are only good for the first year you use the service, and the above offers may only be temporary. Don’t just click blindly through on my reporting. And while the discounted plans are excellent deals, the normal fees are on the pricey side. How does Icedrive perform? Any online storage service will of course be limited to the upload/download bandwidth of your broadband connection. That said, the program was quite speedy in my testing under Windows, and without throttling the rest of the system. It also found new versions of files quickly and synced them to the cloud in darn close to real time. Nice. The experience was largely the same with the macOS version, with the exception that the IceDrive client tended to thwart my attempts to shut down the computer. I had to use “Force quit” on the program on several occasions. Also, the “pause backup” button was sometimes less than responsive. Basically, the Mac client needs to poll the system for OS commands more often. No biggie, but annoying. Should you sign up for Icedrive? Icedrive is easy to use, versatile, and its pricing is quite competitive — when discounted. Drop a half star from the rating at the normal prices. But it’s still definitely worth a look-see. Editor’s note: Because online services are often iterative, gaining new features and performance improvements over time, this review is subject to change in order to accurately reflect the current state of the service. Any changes to text or our final review verdict will be noted at the top of this article. Read...

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If you thought Micro RGB would be the only new TV tech proliferating throughout TV lineups in 2026, think again. Dolby Vision 2 is also coming to many new TVs this year. Hisense announced its intention to support the technology in 2025, with Philips and TCL joining the party at CES this week. First unveiled in September 2025, Dolby Vision 2 promises to alleviate some of the flaws in the original proprietary protocol; namely, Dolby Vision’s overly dark scenes, which will be corrected with an AI-powered feature Dolby calls Precision Black. AI will also redeem the original protocol’s unrealistic sports and video game rendering, via Dolby Vision 2’s Sports and Gaming Optimization, which promises to deliver both malleable white point and motion info. Motion artifact reduction, meanwhile, will be handled by an Authentic Motion element of the protocol, but that feature will be limited to an advanced version called Dolby Vision 2 Max and will likely be found only on higher-end TV models. Additionally, Dolby Vision 2 will adjust the entire color and contrast scheme according to ambient lighting conditions, though obviously this will only work on TVs with ambient light sensors. What’s all this about metadata? Well, Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HDR10+ are relatively small streams of data that piggyback on the actual picture data stream and tell a TV that understands them how to render the content. This can be as granular as frame by frame (in the case of HDR10+ and Dolby Vision 1 and 2), or all at once up front, as with HDR10. Caveats Dolby Vision 2 will only deliver its benefits with content that was created with it. (the movie studio Canal+ was among the first to announce support for it). There was a bit of a brand-war noise at the onset of this piggyback metadata technology, but it was so easy (and free) for content creators and publishers to implement all the protocols, that it became a tempest in a teapot. Hopefully, it will be the same this time around. That said, Samsung will undoubtedly stick with the royalty-free HDR10/HDR10+, as it has in the past. Meanwhile, both LG and Sony have been mum about implementing the new tech; however, if Dolby Vision 2 lives up to the hype and catches buyer’s attention, both industry giants are sure to follow at some point. Sadly, Dolby Vision 2 won’t be an upgrade for existing TVs that support Dolby Vision, as the tech requires new hardware. For now, that means new TVs equipped with a MediaTek Pentonic 800 with MiraVision Pro PQ Engine chipset. Read...

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