As an Android developer, keeping up with the latest technologies is vital to create innovative applications that meet users' growing expectations. Dolby Vision, a type of High Dynamic Range (HDR) video, provides superior visual experiences with brighter highlights, richer colors, and deeper black levels. This article is a reference guide to incorporating Dolby Vision into your Android app.

Dolby Vision Capture on Android

Android phone manufacturers have followed Apple's example and are also introducing smartphones capable of recording in Dolby Vision. Like Apple devices, Android phones also utilize Dolby Vision profile 8.4, which is cross-compatible with the Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG) format.

For detailed steps on how to enable Dolby Vision capture on Android, please check our "Enabling Dolby Vision Capture in Android Mobile media apps" article.

Dolby Vision Editing and Preview

Having the possibility of capturing the Dolby Vision content, you will want to offer your users the ability to edit the video and preview the applied changes in real-time. In this case, it's essential to properly manage Dolby Vision metadata depending on the operations your app makes.

Dolby Vision Editor

To facilitate developers in managing Dolby Vision, Dolby has introduced the open-source sample app called "Dolby Vision Editor". This resource illustrates how to implement decoding, editing, previewing, and encoding of a Dolby Vision video within your application.

The Dolby Vision Editor app is specifically designed to highlight the following operations:

• Display management
• Editing, including applying pixel-level effects and overlaying text
• Hybrid log-gamma (HLG) signaling and previewing
• Trimming
• MP4 muxing

Review the README file and documentation in the docs folder to fully benefit from the Dolby Vision Editor project's resources. 

Migration to SurfaceView

If you're in the process of implementing HDR support in your app, an important component you may need to update is the TextureView. In many cases, applications use the TextureView component to display media. However, TextureView is built to display 8-bit content. To fully support and correctly display Dolby Vision (and other HDR formats) content, you need to switch from TextureView to SurfaceView, as the latter can handle the 10-bit depth (provided by HDR) content.

For more detailed guidance on this transition, check out Google's article on migrating from TextureView to SurfaceView.

HDR Content Requires Updating Graphics

Also, note that besides ensuring the correct processing of the video image itself, you need to accommodate the graphic layer overlay on this content. This means all texts, stickers, effects, filters, etc., must be rendered in HDR. Otherwise, the colors of these elements won't align with the design intentions (e.g., some graphics can be darker or washed out), which will undoubtedly negatively impact the end-user experience.

Dolby Vision Transcoding

Once Dolby Vision content is ready to share, the next step is correctly exporting it.
If you’re looking to update the parameters or format of your exported video, refer to the articles listed below.

• Transcoding Dolby Vision profile 8.4 to Dolby Vision profile 8.4 on Android
• Transcoding Dolby Vision profile 8.4 to HLG on Android
• Transcoding Dolby Vision profile 8.4 to SDR on Android

Enabling Dolby Vision Playback

Follow the instructions in this article for complete guidance on enabling Dolby Vision playback in your application.

How to confirm whether the application correctly handles the Dolby Vision content?

You may be wondering how to confirm whether the changes you made to adapt the application for Dolby Vision support are functioning correctly. We have prepared a guide that will assist you in verifying the processed Dolby Vision content. Check out the "Dolby Vision QC: A Guide for Android Developers" to learn more.