- A royalty-free alternative to Dolby Atmos for TVs and soundbars
- Coming to all 2025 Samsung TVs and soundbars
- YouTube is the only big streamer currently committed to the format
Back in 2023, Samsung and Google announced that they would launch a new Dolby Atmos-rivalling immersive audio format in 2024. That launch was delayed, but not by much: it’s going to be shown off at CES 2025, and will arrive in Samsung’s 2025 TVs and be available on YouTube too.
The format was originally given the unmemorable name of IAMF, short for Immersive Audio Model and Formats. But the branding folks have been in, and the format is now called Eclipsa Audio, which is… well, it’s a bit of an improvement.
As Samsung explains, the new format is coming to every one of its (currently unannounced) 2025 models “from the Crystal UHD series to the premium flagship Neo QLED 8K models”. Samsung has a number of entries on our list of the best TVs and best soundbars, so we’d expect the same from its 2025 range.
A total Eclipsa for art
Eclipsa is part of a wider effort by Google and Samsung to take on Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision by using Eclipsa Audio and HDR10+ instead.
Dolby’s technologies require paid licenses for manufacturers, but these audio and video tech options are intended to be royalty-free, and the underlying tech is open source, enabling others to freely use and modify it. Given the absolutely tiny profit margins in the TV manufacturing industry, you can see why royalty-free audio and video tech might be appealing to TV makers.
The hard bit isn’t the tech, though. It’s getting the world to adopt it. And for now, only some of the world can. For the time being, you’ll only be able to experience Eclipsa on a 2025 Samsung device. And while Samsung is going to sell a lot of TVs and soundbars in 2025, the total number of Eclipsa-compatible devices is still going to be tiny compared to the number of Dolby Atmos ones.
The format also needs to be adopted by streaming firms. For now, the only one on board is YouTube – and the big follow-up question is whether production companies will start producing shows and movies in the new format even if streamers support it. It’s all very chicken-and-egg.
It’s a challenge, but Samsung is optimistic: in a press release it points out that “with the largest market share over 75 inches worldwide, Samsung TVs are poised to make this groundbreaking technology accessible to more consumers than ever before.”
Samsung and Google will be demonstrating their new TV audio tech at CES next week and of course, we’ll be there to tell you all about it.
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