Amazon Prime Video drops Dolby Vision and Atmos unless you pay extra - eviltoast

Amazon Prime Video drops Dolby Vision and Atmos unless you pay extra::Amazon Prime Video has removed Dolby Vision HDR, and Atmos surround sound, unless you pay an extra $2.99 a month for its new ad-free option. The company has confirmed the move.

  • DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    9 months ago

    Mark my words…Amazon is going to experiment with tiering off Prime programs like cable. Want “The Boys?” or “Invincible?” That’s the extra tier.

    • littleblue✨@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Meanwhile, I’m over here, keeping my money and watching whatever TF I want in higher def and no ads — for free. Fuck you, Amazon.

    • johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I would prefer this if they made the core shipping product (the only part I actually care about) cheaper. I’ve never liked their bundled approach. But it looks like they’re just going to increase the cost of everything else instead.

      • Ænima@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        Samesies. Didn’t give two shits when they bundled Amazon prime with video and such. Easy decision of my digital existence was dropping prime soon as they announced the ads and tiered payments.

      • Overzeetop@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I would prefer they brought back the actual shipping part. Not this $169/yr for “best effort 3-10 days depending on our mood” they want me to pay for.

    • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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      9 months ago

      Probably. The industry is still trying to figure out pricing, and the cost of making content isn’t matching the cost consumers are willing to pay for it.

      • _number8_@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        no one wants streaming exclusive content, it inherently feels lower quality, plus making it harder to generate a buzz and make the series feel worthwhile or pressing to watch

    • golli@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      Not sure if that counts, but they bought MGM and they’ve made an MGM+ channel that you can subscribe to for 5€/month, but only if you are a Prime subscriber aswell

    • NanoooK@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      Who still want Invincible? The wait for season2 was so long and we only got few crappy episodes. What a letdown.

      • MimicJar@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Season 2 has been excellent so far.

        I do agree waiting 2 years for 4 episodes, then 5 months for 4 more episodes is a huge let down.

  • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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    9 months ago

    With all the streaming options out there it’s wild to me that these services continue to be able to jack up their prices. I’m less interested than ever with tolerating their bullshit.

      • Ms. ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        Fuck the company I’m in is going hog wild with that right now. I think I’m insulated because I’ve never negotiated pay even when hired so I’m probably relatively cheap for them to keep on. I hope you land well

        • pete_the_cat@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Thanks, it seems like all the tech giants are losing money and laying off a ton of tech workers to please their shareholders.

        • pete_the_cat@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          The real kicker is they gave me my 5 year pin a month before and we’re giving me a yearly monetary incentive to stay with them.

      • Ænima@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        I’m sorry for your lost employment. Hopefully you at least acquired skills to land an even better job!

        • pete_the_cat@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Thanks, there is one upside: it finally allowed me to move out of NYC after 5 years. I’m living down in Miami now, still unemployed but I’m living off the money they gave me haha

    • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Except they’re all pulling the same skeezy shit. Notice that Prime is legit one of the last ones to raise prices, they were waiting for the majority of the market before following suit since literally no one gets Prime just for Prime Video.

    • BassTurd@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I might drop prime and I don’t even watch anything on there, I find them at sea. You don’t get to do ads and charge.

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    9 months ago

    My decision to ditch Prime completely is looking more justified every day. So glad they announced all this cancer before my subscription rolled over.

    Fuck off Amazon.

    • Kbobabob@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I’ve had this conversation recently about why we even have prime. Their shipping has gotten worse, their video has gotten worse, their support has gotten worse(literally just closed the chat conversation so I’d have to start all over), half of their products are Chinese fakes.

      Fuck Amazon

      • Fungah@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I was once transferred 14 times but Amazon customer service. I refused to log off the chat, and insisted each new person read the entire chat history this far while being pleasant and polite “wow 14 times, is this a new world record? I bet we do it kurpreet, let’s go!”

        I was trying to arrange for pi kuo of a vacuum cleaner that was foa. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. Politely.

        Eventually they just said keep the vacuum cleaner it’s on us.

    • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      Same. They definitely were on the bubble and about to be cancelled. They had a few good years where video made up for the declining shipping service. Now there’s no reason to pay.

      What are you paying for? Shipping is the same without prime, and the video and music products suck. Replaced it with looking elsewhere for cheaper products, which I was already doing.

      Btw, if you want a free trial of Shipt your Visa CC may have one. Search for “Shipt Visa trial” or something.

  • Jackthelad@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Oh no, I can’t believe I won’t be able to watch the two shows that use Dolby Vision anymore.

    • pete_the_cat@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I got an LG C8 in 2017 because I thought Dolby Vision was gonna be awesome compared to HDR10, pretty much every Dolby Vision thing I’ve watched is too dark and anything white has that stupid yellowish tint to it.

      • Jackthelad@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I have an LG C2 and I find Dolby Vision content pretty good, but only since they added the IQ setting, which boosts the brightness a little bit.

        Also, I’ve got used to the warm picture settings. So much so that everything else looks too blue to me now.

            • pete_the_cat@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              I’ve watched multiple shows and movies with it, I’m one of those people that loves vivid colors, so even when the TV is calibrated (using an online guide) it still didn’t look good to me 🤷‍♂️

    • Kbobabob@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I just setup the arrs with qbittorrent using Docker on my NAS with overseer. I already had a Plex server setup on an N100 pointed at my NAS but now it is more automated. I was fine with the occasional manual adding of stuff but with how awful all of the services are now I just created my own that works for me.

      • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        took me a while to realize you meant sonarr and radarr by “arrs”

        I have those too, though I am running on unraid.

        previously I wrote my own program for converting, renaming and categorizing movies and tv shows, but now I just use Sonarr and Radarr.

        I will need to setup TDarr soon to start saving on space.

        • RedFox@infosec.pub
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          9 months ago

          Shhh, Guys, Sony is listening… 😉

          Or they’ll throw all their lawers at your instance admin. That actually worries me some.

  • spittingimage@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Is there a word for this? Yanking features from a services so they can be sold to you as an add-on?

    • Mycatiskai@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      Enshittification

      First, they make a service good for the customer even at a loss so customers don’t want to go other places. ✅

      Second, they use the information gathered from you to sell to companies to make money off you. In Amazon’s case they are now so big they don’t need to sell your info but they do it anyways. ✅

      Third, they screw the companies and the users to make the money all for themselves. In Amazon’s case they fuck sellers by making Amazon branded copies of best selling items to cut their third party stores out of business by putting their copies first in the search results.✅

      Read Cory Doctorow’s books about enshittification.(also read his fiction, Little Brother, for a great fast paced dystopian terrorist novel.

  • gotrandom@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    First they inject ads unless you pay more, now they reduce quality unless you, again, pay more. Wild that more and more people have reverted to sailing the seas once more, who’d of thought?

    • ryper@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      The headline isn’t clear, it’s actually one fee; the ad tier doesn’t have Dolby and the ad-free tier does.

  • quafeinum@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Oh thanks! That explains why my audio was so horrible that I had to turn on subtitles. Good riddance

    • Kbobabob@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Prime video? Did anyone actually pay for prime shipping to get the video subscription?

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      9 months ago

      At one point it wasn’t a bad package. Next day delivery, video, music, and even unlimited photo storage backup.

      All of it is now enshittified, nothing more than a gateway to get you to spend more with them.

    • CobblerScholar@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      It was momentum for me, just couldn’t be bothered to take care of it until recently. Glad I did and regret it wasn’t sooner

  • PatFusty@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    Who pays for prime video? Literally the worst selection there is

    • kandoh@reddthat.com
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      9 months ago

      Disagree, prime has a lot of the more niche and interesting shows and movies. Tons of Indy films you can’t find elsewhere like Coherence, a great movie I would never have seen if not for Prime suggesting it.

      • Telodzrum@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Prime has the best depth of random stuff you’d never see otherwise in Sci-Fi and Horror. Aside from that I think AppleTV is the best service out there, right now. Netflix has become such absolute trash over the last several years.

      • poppy@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        Prime is how I watched Women Talking and The Lighthouse. I was even going to crack and finally pay to rent The Lighthouse then I saw it was finally free on Prime. They definitely have some niche films.

      • PatFusty@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        I have only ever used prime as a last resort. I don’t watch much TV but what’s available through prime is usually pretty bad IMHO. I would go as far as to say if someone goes to prime to watch things like rings of power then they probably have bad taste.

        • _number8_@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          it has the worst UX in the world where you search for a film, see they have it, then see you have to subscribe to some other shitty service to watch

        • kandoh@reddthat.com
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          9 months ago

          Invincible, The Boys, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Good Omens, The Expanse, The Wilds, and Fleabag

          All good stuff. Your comment is like me saying HBOmax sucks because Saints of Newark is on it.

          • PatFusty@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            I lmao be honest I only recognized the boys from your list and I thought that show was boring

            • kandoh@reddthat.com
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              9 months ago

              Highly recommend Fleabag if you want a good comedy that’s also sad and horny. You’re also on Lemmy so you should love the expanse.

      • Hootz@lemmy.ca
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        9 months ago

        I bet you could find em on a torrent site or putlocker.

        If it’s truely indie I bet you could find a way to send em the whole 5 cents they made off your prime view, shit make it a $1

    • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      At least in Canada, it was better than Netflix

      No catalogue is worth the prices here though

    • pete_the_cat@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Usenet really is great for piracy, I’m so happy that I found out about it like a decade ago. So much better than torrents.

      • yeehaw@lemmy.ca
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        9 months ago

        But why? I’ve been using torrents with ease for a very long time.

        • CalicoJack@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          9 months ago

          Usenet is a lot faster than torrents, you don’t need a VPN, and it’s more reliable than anything but great private trackers.

          • yeehaw@lemmy.ca
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            9 months ago

            I don’t need a VPN. I only use a single private tracker. All my shits automated and I pay nothing.

            Also I only have 500Mbps which downloads pretty well anything I watch in a few minutes so speed isn’t really noticeable to me.

        • pete_the_cat@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Once you set it up, it’s automatic. The *arr tools were built with usenet in mind, Jackett and the like are just wrappers, also Usenet is a lot faster and flies under the “piracy radar” unlike torrents.

          • yeehaw@lemmy.ca
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            9 months ago

            Yeah but I don’t use the arr tools, I use the other ones which do the same deal but for torrents.

            Private trackers tend to fly under the radar to a degree too. I’m not sure how Usenet does since it’s still a popular method and seems just like a private tracker without sharing your IP with your peers but you pay for it

            • pete_the_cat@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              I belong to a few private trackers as well, they’re not exactly easy to get into. I feel that Usenet is “more clean” because you don’t have to seed the file for X days.

        • pete_the_cat@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Yeah, but it’s worth it. $8/month for automated downloading of pretty much every TV show and most movies, usually within a few days of the official release (if you want release quality). Also it maxes out your downstream bandwidth instantly, unlike torrents. I have a gig pipe and the most I’ve ever seen on a well seeded torrent was about 50-60% of my downstream bandwidth.

    • Sprokes@jlai.lu
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      9 months ago

      Didn’t they improve their DRM some weeks ago and many are having hard time ripping 1080p content?

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    9 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Amazon has confirmed it’s not a mistake — your Amazon Prime Video subscription no longer includes Dolby Vision HDR or Dolby Atmos surround sound.

    That’s on top of the ads that Amazon injected into the service on January 29th.

    That’s the word from 4KFilme, which discovered that their smart TVs from Sony, LG, and Samsung were now displaying content in HDR10 with Dolby Digital 5.1 as opposed to the higher fidelity options they’d enjoyed previously.

    Amazon spokesperson Katie Barker confirms to The Verge that it’s a deliberate move: “Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos capabilities are only available on the ad free option, on relevant titles.”

    While price hikes are no longer remotely unusual in the streaming video space, where Netflix now charges $22.99 a month for its 4K tier, it’s a bit harder to compare Amazon’s prices to Netflix.

    Prime Video is also available as an $8.99-per-month standalone subscription; if you subscribe that way and add $2.99 per month, it’s more like a 28 percent price hike.


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