Samsung And Google’s New Spatial Audio Format Will Take On Dolby Atmos This Year

Samsung and Google are caller to push a caller standard, Eclipsa Audio. This format will alteration 3D audio experiences connected definite YouTube videos later this year, pinch support disposable crossed Samsung’s 2025 lineup of TVs and soundbars. Over nan years, Samsung notably hasn’t supported Dolby Vision HDR for move HDR metadata, choosing alternatively to beforehand its preferred alternative, HDR10 Plus. Now, it seems caller to make a akin competitory push for open-source 3D audio support.

Eclipsa Audio could yet work arsenic a free replacement to Dolby Atmos, nan ascendant 3D audio format that hardware makers for illustration Samsung net to licence for TVs and different equipment. Samsung says that akin to Atmos, this audio format supports adjusting “audio accusation specified arsenic nan location and spot of sounds, connected pinch spatial reflections” to create a 3D experience.

The 2 companies first announced a business to create spatial audio exertion successful 2023, initially calling it Immersive Audio Model and Formats (IAMF). At nan time, Samsung spatial audio caput WooHyun Nam said nan format would proviso “a complete open-source exemplary for 3D audio, from creation to proscription and playback.”

The IAMF spec has too been adopted by nan Alliance for Open Media, a group that has been pushing for royalty-free codec support since 2015 and counts companies for illustration Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Netflix — connected pinch Samsung and Google — among its members. If they too adhd support for this audio format, it could thief it drawback on, though it’s already taken years for their AV1 video codec to spot overmuch use.

Samsung and Google are too creating a certification programme pinch nan Telecommunications Technology Association “to guarantee accordant audio quality” crossed devices utilizing nan format, which too sounds akin to nan measurement companies for illustration Dolby and THX negociate nan labeling for their specs. We expect to comprehend overmuch astir Eclipsa Audio successful nan coming days, arsenic CES 2025 kicks disconnected adjacent week.