LG is reportedly testing a fix for an issue recently noted in the HDMI playback of Dolby Vision enhanced media. For those who may not already be aware, the issue is tied to a given Dolby Vision enabled display’s ability to show true black tones when playing media from an HDMI source. To clarify, Dolby has already created a fix for the problem, saying that the fix needs to be applied to the displays rather than the source devices. So, LG is currently focused on testing the fix before officially releasing it in order to ensure that no further problems will be created by the update. The company has also reportedly confirmed that the fix won’t just be applied to new televisions or those it still holds in storage waiting to be shipped, either. In fact, the tech giant plans to roll out the firmware to its Dolby Vision compatible TVs from as far back as 2016.
Televisions are notoriously difficult for manufacturers to keep updates rolling out to, thanks in part to the number of TVs and the wide variety of models sold. That’s bound to be good news for owners who may have noticed a problem with Dolby Vision playback. Far from being an LG-specific problem, however, Dolby has said this is an issue which manufacturers will need to address individually. There’s no guarantee that others in the industry will implement a fix anytime soon or be quite so generous with how far back in their line of devices they go with it. Fortunately, since Dolby did release the updated firmware to manufacturers – though the company did not specify precisely when that happened – many new devices being shipped to users and certainly most of those recently rolling out of the factory will likely already have the fix implemented.
With that said, if there do turn out to be any further issues brought on by the new firmware, consumers may be stuck with those, pending yet another update. While that’s not necessarily likely to be the case with most manufacturers, it is all going to come down to how thoroughly the update has been vetted by those companies before being rolled out or implemented.