Amazon Removes Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos From Prime Video’s Basic Tier

Amazon Prime Video has quietly put support for Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos on movies and TV shows that support that behind a paywall. The premium video and audio formats now require Prime subscribers in the US and the UK to pay for the new ads-free option, which is priced at $2.99/£2.99 per month.

The change was first noticed by German website 4K Filme, and Amazon later confirmed the news to Forbes. To our knowledge, Amazon never mentioned these restrictions to its basic Prime Video tier when it introduced its new ad-free option last fall.

To be fair, Prime Video isn’t the only streaming service to require users to pay extra for the best video and audio experience. Netflix also restricts 4K quality and spatial audio to its Premium tier ($22.99/month), while Disney+ Basic with ads subscriptions do not currently support audio in Dolby Atmos.

Forbes pointed out that Prime Video users who don’t pay for the ad-free option can still watch content in HDR and HDR10+, the latter being the best alternative to the proprietary Dolby Vision HDR format. That’s better than nothing, even though losing features that were previously included as part of your subscription is not great.

Amazon’s new ad-free option was first introduced in the US on January 29, and Canada and the UK followed in early February. The company will expand it to other markets including Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Mexico and Australia later this year.