Amazon Prime Video: The best picture and sound are now only available for an additional charge

Enlarge image

Prime Video logo: Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision only available at an additional cost.

Photo: Silas Stein/dpa

Since the beginning of February, Amazon has been implementing what the company announced at the end of 2023: series and films will be interrupted by advertising breaks for customers with a Prime subscription, as is the case with linear television. Anyone who is annoyed by this can buy their way out of the advertising for an additional fee of 2.99 euros per month. In internet forums, this announcement was described as a “bad joke” and raised the question: Is Amazon Prime still worth it? The Federal Association of Consumer Organizations (VZBV) has now warned the streaming service and announced that it intends to take legal action against the new regulation.

Now it turns out that with the introduction of the new subscription, Amazon has not only introduced advertising into the paid Prime Video offer. In addition, the company has also reduced the best possible picture and sound quality for Prime customers. This emerges from an article on the portal 4KFilme.de. Accordingly, “content can no longer be streamed with Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos 3D sound” if you have not booked the ad-free subscription.

Only noticed later

Amazon had apparently kept this information to itself until now. According to its own information, 4KFilme.de “only became aware of it because of a comment from one of our readers.” However, tests with TV sets from various manufacturers have shown: "In the standard subscription (with advertising), Prime-exclusive films and series are only delivered with a maximum of 4K resolution, HDR10 and Dolby Digital 5.1," no longer with the higher-quality Dolby standards Vision and Dolby Atmos. The tech magazine “c't” was able to understand this with “various Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision-capable devices (including an Apple TV and an LG television).” This is despite the fact that the corresponding logos of the two image and sound standards are displayed on the overview pages of content that is available in these formats.

When asked, Amazon told SPIEGEL: "Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos functions are only available in the ad-free version and with appropriate content." The company did not provide any further explanations.

According to "c't", this innovation shouldn't make a big difference for most users, as Prime Video currently has fewer than "20 titles with English 3D sound" in its program. It is still surprising that Amazon does not point out in its communication about the ad-free subscription or on its help pages for Prime Video that the two standards are only available for an additional payment. In its help pages about problems with Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision, Amazon doesn't mention at all that problems with these two systems could also be due to a lack of a subscription.

mak