Google Play Movies is a fine way to buy and watch digital movies, but it’s long lacked support for Dolby Vision HDR. According to some code behind the scenes, it looks like that may be coming down the road.
The folks at XDA-Developers dug into Google Play Movies v4.17.22 which has some revealing strings hidden within. According to the strings, Google Play Movies may soon support Dolby Vision content to some extent, but there’s not much information available here.
If Play Movies were to add support for Dolby’s proprietary format, it would arrive in addition to HDR10, which has been available for some time now. Dolby Vision typically offers a bit higher peak brightness from the picture with a bit more dynamic range, too. Of course, you’ll have to have a compatible TV or set-top box to take advantage of the format. Nvidia’s new Shield TV, for example, supports Dolby Vision HDR.
<string name=”details_dolby_vision”>Dolby Vision</string>
<string name=”content_description_dolby_vision”>Dolby Vision</string>
It’s totally unclear when Google plans to make this support available to Play Movies owners, but it’s probably a safe bet that compatible movies will be upgraded for free.