If you’re fed up with streaming services constantly removing movies, or you’re tired of following around your favorite show to a new service each month, then you might have started building a physical media collection. It’s something I’ve been doing for a long time, but I’ve really gotten into it since getting a nice 4K TV so I can really take advantage of its performance. While it’s showing its age now, my Sony Bravia X90J is still a formidable TV, and one of the main reasons I picked it up was for Dolby Vision.

What you might not realize is that there’s not one, not two, but three different HDR formats to choose from when it comes to your 4K Blu-ray discs. All of them come with HDR10, a format that’s available on every 4K TV. The other two are HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, and you’ll need to grab a TV that supports one or the other since those aren’t standard formats. If you ask me, I would say getting access to those higher-end HDR options is well worth the price of admission. It often comes with a TV with a richer feature set, like VRR and 120hz, so it’s not like Dolby Vision is the only thing you get with the purchase, at least depending on the TV.

However, if your TV is like my Sony TV, then you don’t have Dolby Vision enabled by default. You have to dig into your HDMI settings and turn on the Enhanced Format. This might be called something different on your TV. Input Signal Plus or HDMI Ultra Deep Color might be what you’re looking for depending on your brand.

Don’t let your TV hold back your 4K Blu-ray discs

It’s easy to do

You’d think manufacturers would make it as easy as possible to get the best experience out of your TV, but that’s not always the case. This is why one of the first things I do when I hook up a new TV is go through the settings and tailor things to my liking. This includes the various picture settings, and once all that’s done, I like to take a quick pitstop into the HDMI settings to see if there’s anything I need to turn on. For my Fire TV in the spare room, there wasn’t anything I had to do. My TV automatically swapped over to a Dolby Vision picture format when I watched something that needed it.

My Sony TV didn’t have this turned on by default, so I needed to go in and turn on the Enhanced HDMI format. Importantly, there are two different options to choose from, and for Dolby Vision, it’s the aptly named Dolby Vision option. My X90J didn’t have VRR at launch, and it later received it via a software update, so it’s in an interesting situation where I have to pick between Dolby Vision and VRR. I can’t have both at the same time, which means I have to use my TV’s HDMI 4 port just so I can always have VRR on for my Xbox Series X without having to remember to toggle it on.

There’s a decent chance that your TV could fall into the same trap as mine, so it’s best to give it a look before you start watching something. HDR10 looks good, so it’s very easy to think you might have Dolby Vision turned on. I’d still give the edge to Dolby Vision overall, so make sure you have it on. There’s no sense in not getting the most out of your TV if you have one with Dolby Vision or HDR10+.

You need a 4K Blu-ray player too

Another cost on top of the TV

While your TV might have Dolby Vision or HDR10+ support, it doesn’t mean your Blu-ray player does. If you’re using a PS5 or an Xbox as your 4K Blu-ray player, then you don’t have access to anything other than regular HDR10. You need to go out and buy a dedicated 4K Blu-ray player from Sony or Panasonic if you want the better HDR formats. That’s an expensive pill to swallow, but it’s something 4K Blu-ray enthusiasts need to do to get the best quality.

Personally, I think the switch to a dedicated player was well worth it, and it’s something that I did years ago. Sure, I have to toggle on Dolby Vision each time I watch a movie with it, but I’d much rather have to do that than not have access to it at all. The downside is that most of the players on the market are years old and there’s no refresh for them in sight — not even for Dolby Vision 2. For right now, it sounds like that’s going to be an upgrade that’s solely for streaming services. That’s a bit of a bummer, but at least regular Dolby Vision still looks excellent.