Disney+ subscribers across parts of Europe are facing a downgrade in picture quality ,

Disney+ subscribers in Europe lose Dolby Vision HDR access due to “technical challenges.” See how this affects 4K streaming quality across the continent.

Disney+ subscribers across parts of Europe are facing a downgrade in picture quality , having lost access to advanced HDR features like Dolby Vision . According to reports from TechRadar and FlatpanelsHD, the issue was first identified by German users on Reddit but has since affected subscribers in France , the Netherlands , Poland , and Portugal .

In an official statement , Disney attributed the outage to “technical challenges.” The company noted, “We are actively working to restore access to Dolby Vision and will provide an update as soon as possible. 4K UHD and HDR support remain available on supported devices.”

However, the company’s actions suggest this may be more than a temporary glitch . If the issue were purely technical, it is unclear why Disney would scrub references to Dolby Vision from its German support pages . Currently, the company lists standard HDR10 as the default format, despite Dolby Vision having been a staple feature of the service for years .

FlatpanelsHD suggests the root cause is likely legal rather than technological . In November 2025, a research and development company called InterDigital won an injunction against Disney in a German court . The ruling found Disney in violation of a patent related to streaming technology—specifically regarding the dynamic overlay of video streams, such as subtitles . While the connection between subtitle layering and Dolby Vision isn’t immediately obvious, the injunction would explain why German subscribers were the first to notice the feature’s removal .

Engadget has reached out to Disney for further clarification regarding the missing HDR support and whether the InterDigital injunction is the driving factor . We will update this story if we receive a response .

Notably, references to Dolby Vision have also been removed from the US version of the Disney+ video quality support page . While InterDigital has not secured an injunction in the US, the company is actively pursuing a patent case against Disney in the United States District Court for the Central District of California . This doesn’t necessarily mean US subscribers are about to lose the feature, but the scrubbing of the website suggests there is more at play here than simple technical difficulties .

Update, February 6, 3:44PM ET: The original version of this article mentioned the loss of HDR10+ support in Europe. Disney has since clarified that it never offered HDR10+ in that region, and the article has been updated to reflect this .