Samsung and Google are ready to push a new standard, Eclipsa Audio. This format will enable 3D audio experiences in certain YouTube videos later this year. <a target="_blank" href="https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-brings-eclipsa-audio-3d-technology-developed-with-google-to-2025-tvs-and-soundbars”>with support available across Samsung's entire 2025 line of TVs and sound bars. Over the years, Samsung has not supported Dolby Vision HDR for dynamic HDR metadata, instead choosing to promote its preferred alternative, HDR10 Plus. Now, it appears ready to make a similar competitive push for open source 3D audio support.
Eclipsa Audio could eventually serve as a free alternative to Dolby Atmos, the dominant 3D audio format that hardware makers like Samsung pay to license for TVs and other equipment. Samsung says that, like Atmos, this audio format supports adjusting “audio data such as the location and intensity of sounds, along with spatial reflections” to create a 3D experience.
the two companies <a target="_blank" href="https://news.samsung.com/global/interview-movie-quality-audio-from-the-comfort-of-your-home-meet-the-leaders-of-next-generation-3d-audio-technology“>announced for the first time a partnership to develop spatial audio technology in 2023, initially calling it Immersive Audio Model and Formats (IAMF). At that time, Samsung's spatial audio head <a target="_blank" href="https://news.samsung.com/global/interview-movie-quality-audio-from-the-comfort-of-your-home-meet-the-leaders-of-next-generation-3d-audio-technology#:~:text=%E2%80%9CIn%20order%20to,in%20the%20future”>Woo Hyun Nam said the format would provide “a complete open source framework for 3D audio, from creation to delivery and playback.”
The IAMF specification has also been adopted by the Alliance for Open Media, a group that has been pushing for support for royalty-free codecs since 2015 and includes companies such as amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Netflix, along with Samsung and Google, among its members. . If they also add support for this audio format, it could help it become popular, although it has been years before their AV1 video codec sees more use.
Samsung and Google are also creating a certification program with the Telecommunications technology Association “to ensure consistent audio quality” across all devices that use the format, which also sounds similar to the way companies like Dolby and THX manage labeling its specifications. We look forward to hearing more from Eclipsa Audio in the coming days as CES 2025 kicks off next week.
