Dolby Vision on Apple TV

[Natelanxon 27]

Hi devs. I wondered if there were any plans for 2026 to support true Dolby Vision support in the Emby app for Apple TV?

At the moment content plays tone mapped or falls back to HDR10 if available, but for 4K DV I still need to switch to Infuse for playback. 

[alex77777 16]

5 hours ago, Natelanxon said:

Hi devs. I wondered if there were any plans for 2026 to support true Dolby Vision support in the Emby app for Apple TV?

At the moment content plays tone mapped or falls back to HDR10 if available, but for 4K DV I still need to switch to Infuse for playback. 

I am able to play Dolby Vision on my apple tv just fine with Emby, what do you mean it doesn't support it? What display are you using? I have my Apple TV 4k 3rd gen plugged in to my LG C3 and have no issues playing Dolby Vision content via the Emby App.

[Natelanxon 27]

It plays fine to the untrained eye but only because it is tone mapping. It isn’t fully using Dolby Vision’s brightness levels. You can test it yourself by using Infuse (might need the free trial), connecting to your Emby server and playing a DV file. You’ll see it’s brighter and colours are richer. 

Edited December 28, 2025 by Natelanxon

[alex77777 16]

On 12/28/2025 at 10:37 AM, Natelanxon said:

It plays fine to the untrained eye but only because it is tone mapping. It isn’t fully using Dolby Vision’s brightness levels. You can test it yourself by using Infuse (might need the free trial), connecting to your Emby server and playing a DV file. You’ll see it’s brighter and colours are richer. 

Oh I see what you are saying, that makes sense

[gthrift 64]

Mine is triggering Dolby Vision if the files are DV Profile 8.1.  If they are Profile 7, they fall back to HDR 10 because the Apple TV does not support DV Profile 7.   Infuse may also be falling back to HDR10 but just doing better/different tone mapping.

Check the movie you are trying to play in the Emby webui and see which profile they are.

There is a tool that can be used to convert Profile 7 to Profile 8 and they will play back correctly.   
https://github.com/cryptochrome/dovi_convert
 

[Natelanxon 27]

@Lukewondered if you had thoughts on Emby's support for Dolby Vision on Apple TV.

[NiceMarmut 2]

On 12/28/2025 at 10:07 AM, alex77777 said:

I am able to play Dolby Vision on my apple tv just fine with Emby, what do you mean it doesn't support it? What display are you using? I have my Apple TV 4k 3rd gen plugged in to my LG C3 and have no issues playing Dolby Vision content via the Emby App.

Are your DV files in MKV or mp4 containers? While my DV files(mkv) do trigger DV on my C3, they aren't as bright and there's a green tint, when compared to the same file using Infuse.

[alex77777 16]

1 minute ago, NiceMarmut said:

Are your DV files in MKV or mp4 containers? While my DV files(mkv) do trigger DV on my C3, they aren't as bright and there's a green tint, when compared to the same file using Infuse.

Yes they are MKV, I also see the green tint on a few movies 

[alex77777 16]

39 minutes ago, NiceMarmut said:

Are your DV files in MKV or mp4 containers? While my DV files(mkv) do trigger DV on my C3, they aren't as bright and there's a green tint, when compared to the same file using Infuse.

I've tested infuse briefly and when I play those same files my TV detects it as HDR rather than Dolby Vision and that tint you speak of is gone. I was suspecting this has something to do with the FEL layer some Dolby Vision files have but it doesn't seem to be the case as when I tested another Dolby Vision 7.6 file with FEL there wasn't a green tint to it. Dolby Vision can make things seem darker than your typical HDR 10 in general so I wonder if this is how its supposed to look. 

[RanmaCanada 494]

If you want DV, you should not be using an Apple TV as it's severely limited on what profiles it supports.

[alex77777 16]

10 hours ago, RanmaCanada said:

If you want DV, you should not be using an Apple TV as it's severely limited on what profiles it supports.

Apple TV 4k 3rd is probably the best streaming device on the market at the moment. The NVIDIA Shield is slightly better in some ways but worse in others and its getting quite old. From my understanding the NVIDIA shield is only capable of Dolby Vision 5 and Dolby Vision 8.1 just like the Apple TV. Is there another streaming box you are referring to that is better at Dolby Vision?

[NiceMarmut 2]

On 1/30/2026 at 4:14 PM, alex77777 said:

I've tested infuse briefly and when I play those same files my TV detects it as HDR rather than Dolby Vision and that tint you speak of is gone. I was suspecting this has something to do with the FEL layer some Dolby Vision files have but it doesn't seem to be the case as when I tested another Dolby Vision 7.6 file with FEL there wasn't a green tint to it. Dolby Vision can make things seem darker than your typical HDR 10 in general so I wonder if this is how its supposed to look. 

That's a thought, but I don't think that's the issue. I have "baked in" the FEL layer whenever I'm aware of it (like BTTF), but all of my files are DV 8.1. They look normal in Infuse/ChannelsDVR and trigger properly DV or HDR. And while whatever Emby update that now triggers DV/HDR it feels like the files aren't really being displayed properly, and don't look any different prior to said update. And while this could be a DV issue, I find HDR in Emby also not good, and there's a noticeable lack of brightness and color off-ness between Emby and Infuse/ChannelsDVR/Plex beta (HDR only).

[RanmaCanada 494]

13 hours ago, alex77777 said:

Apple TV 4k 3rd is probably the best streaming device on the market at the moment. The NVIDIA Shield is slightly better in some ways but worse in others and its getting quite old. From my understanding the NVIDIA shield is only capable of Dolby Vision 5 and Dolby Vision 8.1 just like the Apple TV. Is there another streaming box you are referring to that is better at Dolby Vision?

Yes, there are other, far superior Android boxes, like Ugos,  Zidoo 9x 8k, Dune HD Homatics Boxes, or a PC running latest windows 11 (full DV support). Apple devices are designed to stay in their eco-system (and work great in that eco-system) but as soon as you leave, they show just how horrible they are. It also doesn't help that the Apple TV seriously throttles every single remote Emby connection to 4mb, even if you set it manually to something higher.

[rbjtech 5282]

23 hours ago, alex77777 said:

Apple TV 4k 3rd is probably the best streaming device on the market at the moment. The NVIDIA Shield is slightly better in some ways but worse in others and its getting quite old. From my understanding the NVIDIA shield is only capable of Dolby Vision 5 and Dolby Vision 8.1 just like the Apple TV. Is there another streaming box you are referring to that is better at Dolby Vision?

The Shield supports all the DV profiles - 5, 7 and 8 and it also supports all containers incl MKV.    Not to mention DTS-HD, DTS-X, True-HD etc.     The only thing the Shield is missing is AV1 hardware acceleration.   For a 7 year old piece of hardware, I'd say that's pretty impressive and along with the Emby for AndroidTV running on it, it is the reason it remains my primary client.

[alex77777 16]

9 hours ago, RanmaCanada said:

Yes, there are other, far superior Android boxes, like Ugos,  Zidoo 9x 8k, Dune HD Homatics Boxes, or a PC running latest windows 11 (full DV support). Apple devices are designed to stay in their eco-system (and work great in that eco-system) but as soon as you leave, they show just how horrible they are. It also doesn't help that the Apple TV seriously throttles every single remote Emby connection to 4mb, even if you set it manually to something higher.

Ah is see, I don't use Emby remotely so I've never experienced that issue (although upon research it seems to be other factors that cause it to be capped at a 4mb bandwidth not necessarily the Apple TV itself doing it). I mainly like the Apple TV because I hate ads on the home page  and companies selling my data(supposedly apple doesn't do that). I typically avoid anything google since they don't respect privacy. That was what helped me make my decision to go with the Apple TV over the NVIDIA shield. Its a give and take situation, seems there is no perfect device out there especially if you consider data collection of the devices. I used to primarily use WebOS on my LG TV until I learned of all the data collection those TVs have and the unwanted installing of other apps such as copilot. I also just wanted something that was easy to use and wasn't clunky. Apple TV checks more boxes for format support and privacy than any other streaming device on the market. If you disregard privacy and how smooth a device is, there will of course be better devices for Dolby Vision. All about finding that balance. 

[alex77777 16]

1 minute ago, rbjtech said:

The Shield supports all the DV profiles - 5, 7 and 8 and it also supports all containers incl MKV.    Not to mention DTS-HD, DTS-X, True-HD etc.     The only thing the Shield is missing is AV1 hardware acceleration.   For a 7 year old piece of hardware, I'd say that's pretty impressive and along with the Emby for AndroidTV running on it, it is the reason it remains my primary client.

Nvidia shield doesn't support Dolby Vision 7 like how you may think, it just converts it to Dolby Vision 8 when it receives the signal which comes with issues such as "Red push" when doing the conversion. Although Apple TV doesn't support Truehd/DTS-HD MA Passthrough it can convert it to another lossless format called LPCM all you lose is the height channels but retain all the other audio data. Hard for me to justify the purchase of a 7 year old device that displays ads on the homepage and is not privacy focused for $150-$200. Although the hardware and format support is impressive.

[rbjtech 5282]

1 minute ago, alex77777 said:

Nvidia shield doesn't support Dolby Vision 7 like how you may think, it just converts it to Dolby Vision 8 when it receives the signal which comes with issues such as "Red push" when doing the conversion. Although Apple TV doesn't support Truehd/DTS-HD MA Passthrough it can convert it to another lossless format called LPCM all you lose is the height channels but retain all the other audio data. Hard for me to justify the purchase of a 7 year old device that displays ads on the homepage and is not privacy focused for $150-$200. Although the hardware and format support is impressive.

I would not buy one today, on that we agree - but trying to convince anybody that an AppleTV is more compatible than a Shield Pro for use with HDR and modern HD Audio passthrough for AVR's coupled with Emby, is not something I'm going to debate in the 'AppleTV' section.. 

[alex77777 16]

6 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

I would not buy one today, on that we agree - but trying to convince anybody that an AppleTV is more compatible than a Shield Pro for use with HDR and modern HD Audio passthrough for AVR's coupled with Emby, is not something I'm going to debate in the 'AppleTV' section.. 

Yeah lol, technically NVIDIA shield pro is better than Apple TV in almost every way when it comes to video and audio support. NVIDIA did say they don't plan on ending support for it, so that is good news for anyone wanting to purchase one today. 

[RanmaCanada 494]

2 hours ago, alex77777 said:

Ah is see, I don't use Emby remotely so I've never experienced that issue (although upon research it seems to be other factors that cause it to be capped at a 4mb bandwidth not necessarily the Apple TV itself doing it). I mainly like the Apple TV because I hate ads on the home page  and companies selling my data(supposedly apple doesn't do that). I typically avoid anything google since they don't respect privacy. That was what helped me make my decision to go with the Apple TV over the NVIDIA shield. Its a give and take situation, seems there is no perfect device out there especially if you consider data collection of the devices. I used to primarily use WebOS on my LG TV until I learned of all the data collection those TVs have and the unwanted installing of other apps such as copilot. I also just wanted something that was easy to use and wasn't clunky. Apple TV checks more boxes for format support and privacy than any other streaming device on the market. If you disregard privacy and how smooth a device is, there will of course be better devices for Dolby Vision. All about finding that balance. 

I have a pi-hole on my network that stops all data collection, all ads, everything. 

[alex77777 16]

3 hours ago, RanmaCanada said:

I have a pi-hole on my network that stops all data collection, all ads, everything. 

Very nice. definitely worth setting up pi-hole. 

[alex77777 16]

On 1/30/2026 at 3:27 PM, NiceMarmut said:

Are your DV files in MKV or mp4 containers? While my DV files(mkv) do trigger DV on my C3, they aren't as bright and there's a green tint, when compared to the same file using Infuse.

I found a way to remove the green tint from the Dolby Vision MKV files. You have to have audio and video transcoding turned off, as well as changing of container formats off for the user on the Apple TV. Originally I only had audio and video transcoding off but still faced the green tint that you speak of. What did the trick was turning off the ability to change container formats. 

[Natelanxon 27]

Nice hack. I just wish the devs would at least acknowledge the question. I don't think it's too much to ask for paying customers. There's got to be some reason DV files all play fine on Infuse on Apple TV but not Emby on Apple TV.

[NiceMarmut 2]

7 hours ago, alex77777 said:

I found a way to remove the green tint from the Dolby Vision MKV files. You have to have audio and video transcoding turned off, as well as changing of container formats off for the user on the Apple TV. Originally I only had audio and video transcoding off but still faced the green tint that you speak of. What did the trick was turning off the ability to change container formats. 

That's great. But where are those settings? I looked on the server and client, I've never seen those.

Found it (under Emby Server/Users/Profile).

Holy cow! That's it!

Edited February 11 by NiceMarmut
Found the setting

[alex77777 16]

On 2/10/2026 at 3:11 PM, Natelanxon said:

Nice hack. I just wish the devs would at least acknowledge the question. I don't think it's too much to ask for paying customers. There's got to be some reason DV files all play fine on Infuse on Apple TV but not Emby on Apple TV.

 

20 hours ago, NiceMarmut said:

That's great. But where are those settings? I looked on the server and client, I've never seen those.

Found it (under Emby Server/Users/Profile).

Holy cow! That's it!

Glad I can help, I would love to see more of a focus for Emby on Apple TV especially since its one of the best streaming boxes out there. 

[NiceMarmut 2]

I've been waiting for this feature for at least 6 months, if not more. I'm beyond excited, it's the final feature I've been waiting for.

@LukeI hope you'll consider changing the profile/playback defaults, or something to get proper HDR/DV playback. I've never seen those playback options, and would not have thought to look for them there, nor would I have known how it affects HDR/DV.