To be able to playback Dolby Vision content as real DV, not fallback to HDR10(plus), what equipment in the AV pipline needs to be explicitly Dolby Vision capable?
For player-led DV:
(P1) Media box with SoC certified for Dolby Vision, plus CE -ng or -ne
(P2) AV Receiver?
(P3) Display / Projector certified for Dolby Vision
For TV-led DV:
(D1) Media Box: does the SoC need to be certified for Dolby Vision, or would a simple S905X4 (non-J, non-K) do?
(D2) AV Receiver?
(D3) Display or projector ceritified for Dolby Vision and with somewhat beefy CPU and able to process DV on its own. Is there any buzzword to look out for in a display / projector to know whether it is capable for processing DV on its own?
The main question here for me is, do I need to invest in a new AVR that is capable of Dolby Vision?
On CE the EDID reports my AVR (Pioneer VSX-921), which is a bit old, I don’t think it has any idea what DV is.
New gear always nice, but you don’t have to buy a new AVR to solve this.
Use an HDFury Arcana to separate audio/video. So FEL media box into Arcana. Video output from Arcana to TV with FEL and audio output to AVR. The website has several graphics showing potential configurations but it should address what you are looking for.
Thanks for pointing this out, it is an interesting approach. However, here I see the models than could make sense are ranging between 250 and 600, not much less than an entirely new AVR. I will keep it in mind as an option.
Depends on what your AV actually does, as you can always just directly connect the media-box to your TV and than use arc/earc/spdif for the sound. This circumvents all the HDMI/TV/DV issues or handshake EDID failures.
Most TV’s have at least a arc or spdif-out, that you can route to your AV.
If the AV also act as a HDMI switch, than its more complicated, yet a decent DV compatible HDMI-switch is cheaper than a new AV-receiver, if that’s all you need.
PS: There are the new LED HDMI 2.1 boxes, that act as HDMI switch and give you LED, maybe that’s worth looking into.
My AVR does HDMI switching and is old enough to only support up to 1080p 60Hz.
The LED HDMI boxes are interesting, so far I only knew the Philips HUE box which is quite expensive. To date I just use Hyperion on the Kodi box (haven’t tried it yet on CE though) and it was nothing less than excellent for ambient TV back lighting. Using LED HDMI boxes as HDMI switches is an interesting option.
It will depend on price and what you focus on. The HDFury certainly has a different functional focus thet the LED boxed cannot satisfy. From my perspective a modern AVR provides all I need and for LED backlight I’d go for Hyperion + WLED again instead of spending more.