Xbox One S will support the HDR10 color standard for 4K TVs

By John Callaham
published

A new report says that the upcoming Xbox One S console will support the HDR10 color standard for 4K TVs. That means similar TVs that use the rival Dolby Vision might not be supported.

The Xbox One S was announced last week at E3 2016. In additon to being 40% smaller than the current Xbox One, the new version of the console will be able to support native 4K video on supported TVs. It will also offer owners high dynamic range (HDR) color support. However, there are currently two competing HDR standards: Dolby Vision and HDR10.

According to Polygon:

After some confusion last week, Polygon has been able to confirm with Microsoft that the Xbox One S will support HDR10 when it launches in August. The company was silent on support for Dolby's standard.

If the Xbox One S does not, in fact, support the Dolby Vision standard for HDR video, that could be a problem for owners of some 4K TVs which use it exclusively:

Vizio, LG and a number of smaller manufacturers have signed on with Dolby, a standard that offers better HDR performance but requires licensed Dolby hardware in both the media player and the 4K television used to display the content. (Vizio is promising an update to its M- and P-Series 4K televisions later this year to support HDR10 as well as Dolby Vision.)

It's likely that the Xbox One S doesn't support Dolby Vision due to the cost of licensing Dolby-based hardware. The HDR10 standard has the approval of TV makers like Sony and Samsung. HDR color will be supported by upcoming Xbox One games from Microsoft like Gears of War 4 and Forza Horizon 3.

Pre-orders for the Xbox One S have begun, with the starting price of $299.99 (opens in new tab). Shipments of the 2TB version are scheduled to begin in August, with the 1TB and 500GB version due for launch later in 2016.

See at Microsoft Store (opens in new tab)

John Callaham
John Callaham
51 Comments
  • If you have a 4K TV, you should have a Samsung or Sony...hands down. This shouldn't be a problem lol
  • Lol just no. The new Vizio P-series is fantastic, and just as good if not better than Samsung and Sony's for quite a bit less.
  • Vizio is aight, it is Sony's grandchild. Samsung is pretty awesome though, I unno without seeing it in person.
  • hahahahaha, no
  • LGs top of the line and newer OLEDs have HDR10 and Dolby. LG also in most tests beat Samsung on OLED (LG have pretty much bet the future of their company with a 7billion US investment into the OLED tech)
  • For the price of one of the C6 LG oled's, I could have a P65 for almost every wall in my room!
  • LG OLED is the current best. Awesome TVs. I saw a 55" 2016 LG OLED running HDR content at Best Buy. It blew my mind.
  • Lol REALLY , in what world do you live ? Vizio better our just as good than the Samsung SUHD range . not in this world .
  • Thanks for the notice, I think Sony and Samsung make the best TV's, glad they will support HDR10 which is the Xbox One standard. Glad Sony which also manufactures the PS4 is supporting a standard for video games.  Lets hope Nintendo also joins HDR10 support so Dolby Vision becomes a minority and it gets cancelled.
  • Also, Dolby Vision uses the base layer of HD10. So even if the UHD BD has Dolby Vision "only", you will still get HDR10. It's probably due to licensing AND hardware (DV uses 12 bit instead of 10 and there are no Chips available for that right now, hence no UHD BD player can do it now anyway) that the One can't do it. At least for now not a deal breaker since there is not a single UHD BD with DV. Only streaming services are using it.
  • Plus, with TVs being update-able, if a particular standard takes off pretty much all TV manufacturers will be able to push out an update for at least partial compatibility. Even if it is a problem, it will be a temporary one.
  • No they can't. For DV you need a hardware chip that supports it. DV being 12 bit and HDR 10 just 10bit, you can't just use the same SoC for that.
  • Right you either have Dolby Vision HDR in your TV or you don't. You can't upgrade hardware OTA. LOL
  • The problem is Vizio and LG don't have a UHD BD player, while Samsung and Microsoft do which will support HDR10 so I guess BD will only support HDR10 and not Dolby Vision, am I right?
  • Right!!! If a 4K UltraHD Blu-ray only supports HDR10 (10-bit chip) it can't be upgraded to Dolby Vision HDR which is a chip that is 12-bit. There are no 4K UltraHD Blu-ray player that support Dolby Vision HDR right now. LG or Vizio might have 4K UltraHD Bluray players in the future. If a future 4K Bluray supports Dolby Vision HDR it will automatically support HDR10 (which all current 4K UltraHD Blurays now support). Dolby Vision HDR is mainly used for streaming 4K UHD content from Amazon Video, Netflix and Vudu right now. It displays for certain 4K UltraHD movies on my 75" LG Super UHD with Dolby Vision HDR and HDR10. Netflix said they will have two version of 4K UltraHD HDR formats for each movie (Dolby Vision and HDR10). They will have 100 4K UltraHD movies and show with HDR in both formats.  
  • Samsung make the best TVs so this will be fine.  Sony are great too.  If Visio can add support via firmware update this doesn't sound like it's an issue.
  • Samsung is bleh. Thier TV OS is crap. I own their 2014 Flagship 4k LED TV, so I can attest. Also, many manufactors won't add new features through firmware because they come out with new models each year. Samsung did it to me, so once again, I can attest.  
  • Samsung and Sony are the best TV's in 2016. I'm going to update my Sony 1080p LED TV to a Samsung or Sony model, but I still don't know which one.
  • Wait a minute! If the Xbox one S has these feature and its new then why is it that we have 24, 30 and 36 bits deep color settings that are j same thing as 8, 10, and 12 bits color plus the color range????
  • The deep color is just a "blow-up". The new Xbox can decode the new UHD video and pass the HDR meta data. HDR doesn't necessarily mean 10 bit. You can have 10 or 12 or 16 bit video without HDR and you can also have 8bit video with HDR (theoretically).
  • One is total bits, the other is bits per Red, Green, and Blue pixel. So 12 bit per color = 36 bit total.
  • 24bit PC is 8bit video 30bit PC is 10bit video 36bit PC is 12bit video These are *almost* literally the same thing with the exception of how different industries denote things.  In the PC industry everything is about badwidth requirements so it is important to denote things with the full bit depth.  In the video industry the per-color bit depth is important, so they have always denoted things with the smaller numbers.
  • I believe that vizio currently makes some of the best 4k hdr tv's. Although I'm sure many will find that surprising.
    Maybe for Dolby vision they could release a "codec" that they could charge for, for anyone that requires it. If the hardware is capable.
  • What is with all the Visio supporters getting down votes? I am a huge Samsung TV fanboy and even I know that the new Visio P series are a heck of a deal while delivering amazing and comparable quality to the high end Sammy and Sony TVs. People need to go into a real home theater store with calibrated TVs (ie, not big box stores) and check them out side-by-side. You would be hard pressed to see the difference.
    Personally still saving up for a Sammy, but most of my friends are jumping on Visio P TVs and I have to say that they look great!
  • Wonder if XBox 3D support will come for 3DTVs any time soon. I up-convert 2D>3D but that's not the same thing. Still fun though.
  • Ummm... The Xbox One can already play 3d movies and has been able to for awhile now.
  • I'm sorry, it's not clear from my comment. I meant support for playing games on Xbox and able to use 3DTV/3D glasses. When I let the TV up-convert games like Dirt to 3D, they are a lot of fun but I am sure if they supported actual 3D, it would be even better.
  • LG and Vizio won't have problems with HDR10 support.  That's just incorrect reporting from Polygon.  LG has already added HDR10 support to their TVs and Vizio will be including it in an update just around the corner.
  • Good... Hopefully, this will force some TV manufacturers to support more open standards. And yes, Dolby can still make money out of their standard if they make it "free".
  • What is very important: can the newXBO bitstream HD audio? The current one can't. So you won't get Atoms or DTS:X.
  • Raw PCM is the best anyway given that It's totally lossless and uncompressed.
  • Ugh. The audio is already compressed on the disc. Bitstreaming just sends it as-is to a receiver for decoding instead of decoding it on the Xbox and sending it as PCM. This is preferable as AVRs have much better DSP modes for various formats and, as was stated, is a requirement for using Dolby Atmos or DTS:X. And Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD-MA are totally lossless codecs.
  • Yes! John Callaham, can you find this out?   This is basically my deciding factor on buying the S and not waiting for project scorpio. After 360, I turned to PC gaming as in HTPC gaming. SO I don't really need a console, except for exclusives. With Play Anywhere, that makes it easier on not needing a console. But the Xbox S turning into an Ultra Blu Ray player totally justifies the purchase for poeple like me, that is, if it can do bitstreaming.
  • People think that they want HDR because it looks better.  In reality, it removes quality of the image.  The reason they are pushing HDR is because an HDR image compresses better.  Like a cartoon with solid colors versus a photograph.  HDR is being pushed by broadcast, cable, and sattelight vendors as it enables them to shove more crap in the allocated bandwidth. HDR is not something I want.  I want pure 4k.  But then again, I want a cell phone that doesn't garble the person's audio but everyone else seems to be fine with that.  I have caviar taste and I am living in a Walmart world.
  • HDR is just meta data on top of the video. How is this supposed to make the video compress more?
  • No no, leave him be its ok. He'll understand with time.
  • You forgot the #firstworldproblems hashtag.
  • There's a noteworthy amount of stupidity and ignorance in your comment.
  • *satellite
  • I have the Vizio D50u-D1 and the 4k picture is so amazing but doesn't support HDR so I don't really care for it.
  • The horror!
  • Have you seen HDR? It's incredible on a OLED tv. I'd say it's an even bigger advancement then 1080p or 4k.
  • Maybe I was drunk but when they announced the Xbox one, didn't they claim it would support 4k? Whatever happened to that?
  • I dont remember that at all.  
  • Xbox One (currently available) lacks HDMI 2.0, so it's phyically impossible for it to support 4k. The Xbox One S and Scropio will support 4k.
  • Great news. Already have DolbyVision on my Vizio P65.
  • But Xbox will not use DolbyVision so how is this great news? Or are you being sarcastic?
  • Glad I haven't spend my hard earned money on a UHD TV yet, I'm still on FHD (1080p), if Xbox One and PS4 will support HDR10, then my next UHD TV will be from Sony or Samsung. Goodbye Vizio and LG.  In this difficult economic times, you cannot make a large investment like a TV without knowing the standards, and I'm glad Xbox One S will use a standard that is being used by top manufacturers like Sony and Samusung.  Great job Microsoft for choosing this standard.
  • the 2016 LG Super UHD 4k TV's support both HDR10 and Dolby Vision. I have one and it has an amazing picture. You may want to consider it among your choices as you will not have to worry about which HDR standard in the future as to which one gets more media support.
  • this really isn’t a format war because every Dolby Vision TV can support HDR10. HDR10 TVs will never be able to support Dolby Vision because it lacks the hardware. Dolby Vision is not only brighter, but has 12-bit color versus 10-bit color so the range is broader. Tests bear out that it looks better. Plus, with Dolby Vision, the content creator can ensure that the image looks exactly the way the creator wanted because of how Dolby Vision works. HDR10 has no ability to ensure it looks "correct."   But best doesn’t always win. Dolby Vision requires additional hardware which means it’s more expensive. This is why Firewire lost to USB. Back in the early days, Firewire was clearly faster because it had a processor in the device. So when you were transferring files, you could do other computer stuff without any slowdown. With USB, the computer’s CPU does the processing so you can actually slow down the computer just by transferring files. But USB won because it was cheaper and didn’t require any additional hardware. Nowadays, computers are so fast that you don’t notice the computer slowing down when transferring files.   So a smart person picks the Dolby Vision TV to ensure that they get all the content. A lot of vendors signed up to do Dolby Vision. Just not as many as HDR10. If your thing is physical media, then HDR10 is clearly the winner. However, we live in a streaming digital age. And Dolby Vision so far has pretty good streaming support.
  • I have the 1TB Call of Duty Xbox One. Selling it to a friend for $250 with extra Call of Duty controller. Pre-ordered the Xbox One S. I have a 50' Samsung SUHD with HDR10 and a 75" LG Super UHD with Dolby Vision HDR and HDR10. Movies in 4K UHD from Vudu and Netflix are display in Dolby Vision HDR on my 75" LG Super UHD.  Movies companies already on board to support Dolby Vision HDR. When you will it on a 4K UltraHD Blu-ray is the question. Dolby Vision HDR is mainly used in streaming 4K UltraHD movies for now (On Netflix, Amazon and Vudu). My LG 75" Super UHD TV got an update to play Vudu 4K UHD movies. I redeemed two of my 4K UltraHD Blu-rays from WB. They redeemed in 4k UHD on Vudu (San Andreas and Mad Max). The Vizio P-Series will get the HDR10 (10-bit) update it already has Dolby Vision HDR. You can't just upgrade to Dolby Vision HDR (12-bit)  because it is a chip not software only. 4K TVs that support Dolby Vision HDR automatically support HDR10. Well I believe I will be set when I get my Xbox One S next month. Selling my Samsung KS-8500 4K UltraHD next month also. First Xbox One game with HDR, Forza Horizon 3 then Gears of War 4.