The Amazon Prime Video free tier recently got a big downgrade, when it started showing ads for the first time, but it seems that’s not the only bad news.

German site 4KFilme first spotted that Dolby Vision and Atmos were no longer active on their smart TVs, and the company has now confirmed that this is a feature, not a bug …

The Verge got confirmation from Amazon that the move is a deliberate one.

Amazon has confirmed it’s not a mistake — your Amazon Prime Video subscription no longer includes Dolby Vision HDR or Dolby Atmos surround sound.

Amazon spokesperson Katie Barker confirms to The Verge that it’s a deliberate move: “Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos capabilities are only available on the ad free option, on relevant titles.”

Content for free users is now falling back to HDR10 for video and Dolby Digital 5.1 for audio.

It follows hot on the heels of the introduction of the ad breaks, which started in the US just a couple of weeks ago.

The ecommerce giant will obviously be hoping that the combined moves will persuade people to upgrade to the paid tier. The reality is more likely to be a lot of dissatisfied customers, and rather few upgraders.

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash