Streaming Company Amazon Prime Video who has moved to an ads basic plan in an effort to make more money, is set to reduce the quality of streaming in Australia when the new changes are rolled out locally later this year.
ChannelNews understands that the Amazon owned Company has restricted Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos playback to its more expensive ad-free subscription plan.
When Amazon recently pushed ads into millions of homes in the USA UK, Germany, and Canada as part of their changes, the Company appears to have also made changes to streaming quality.
The news was first reported by German website 4KFilme and later corroborated by Forbes in the UK.
They conducted tests across LG, Samsung, Sony, and TCL TVs to confirm the changes.
The tests came after users noticed a shift, with content no longer playing in Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio.
However, 4K, HDR10, HDR10+ and 5.1 surround are still available.
While it is possible that this change is due to a technical error or a limitation related to ad breaks, Amazon Prime Video has nonetheless downgraded streaming quality for all users who are not subscribed to the pricier ad-free plan.
Prime Video lacked Dolby Vision support in the past and only recently adopted it.
Ads will be introduced in Australia, France, Italy, Mexico, and Spain later in 2024.
