After what seems like years of rumour and speculation, Samsung Electronics and Google have finally announced their rival immersive sound format to Dolby Atmos. It’s called Eclipsa Audio, and it will be a new feature on Samsung’s 2025 TVs.
The companies were first said to be working on an alternative to Dolby Atmos way back in 2020, and they finally confirmed they were doing so in 2023, but the open-source technology was never announced, until now.
However that has changed, with CES 2025 set to be the first time we’ll get to experience the capabilities of what was formerly known as “Project Caviar”. The Eclipsa Audio format was formerly known as IAMF, which stood for “immersive Audio Model and Formats”, and it is expected to feature on all of Samsung’s new 2025 televisions, including its high-end OLED, New QLED and 8K resolution models.
With Samsung having worked closely with Google to devise the new surround sound experience, it’s not really much of a surprise to learn that YouTube will be the first service to support the new format. Every user will be able to upload new videos to that platform with the Eclipsa Audio format, but of course, you’ll only be able to experience what it sounds like if you own a new Samsung television.
Eclipsa Audio is an alternative to Dolby Atmos, just as HDR10+ is a rival to the Dolby Video HDR format, but it remains to be seen if it will get much traction. For Eclipsa Audio to succeed, it will need to attract greater support from other brands, audio device makers and TV streaming services, but there’s no indication that it’s forthcoming, at least not now.
We’d imagine that this limited launch is all about giving people a taste of what Eclipsa Audio is capable of, but whether the rest of the industry will like what it hears is an open question.
