Dynamic metadata is the whole difference
HDR10 sends one MaxCLL figure for an entire file. Dolby Vision sends tone-mapping instructions that change scene by scene, and in some profiles frame by frame, carried in a reference processing unit (RPU) alongside the video.
On a two-hour film that alternates between night interiors and daylight exteriors, this matters: a display tone-mapping against the brightest frame in the whole movie will crush the dark scenes. On a 30-second clip with consistent lighting, the two formats land in roughly the same place.
The profiles, because they are not interchangeable
| Profile | Base layer | Where it shows up |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Single-layer IPT-PQ-C | Streaming, not backward compatible with HDR10 |
| 7 | Dual-layer | Ultra HD Blu-ray |
| 8.1 | HDR10 | Streaming, falls back to HDR10 |
| 8.4 | HLG | iPhone recording, falls back to HLG |
Profiles 8.1 and 8.4 are the interesting ones because their base layer is an ordinary stream: 8.1 sits on HDR10, meaning SMPTE ST 2084 PQ, and 8.4 sits on HLG. A player that does not understand the Dolby metadata plays the base layer and gets a valid picture.
Profile 8.4 is the one most people hold without knowing it: an iPhone 12 or newer shooting in HDR records Dolby Vision 8.4. See converting iPhone video to HDR for what that means in practice.
The licence is the constraint
Dolby licenses the format to both encoder and display manufacturers. That funds the ecosystem and also limits it: a tool cannot output Dolby Vision without a commercial agreement, and a display cannot decode it without one either. HDR10 has no such gate, which is why it remains the format to deliver in when the playback device is unknown.
Questions people ask
Can I convert Dolby Vision to HDR10?
For profiles 8.1 and 8.4, effectively yes: their base layer already is HDR10 or HLG, so discarding the Dolby metadata leaves a valid file. Profile 5 is not backward compatible and needs a real conversion rather than a strip.
Does my iPhone shoot Dolby Vision?
An iPhone 12 or newer does by default, in profile 8.4, which sits on an HLG base. That is why most recent iPhone clips are already HDR and need no conversion. See converting iPhone video for how to confirm it on a specific file.
Is Dolby Vision always better than HDR10?
On a display that supports it and on content whose lighting varies a lot, usually yes, because per-frame metadata tone-maps each scene on its own terms. On a short clip with consistent lighting the difference is often invisible, and HDR10 plays on strictly more devices.
Related: HDR10 vs Dolby Vision vs HLG.