Dolby Atmos rival Eclipsa Audio to launch this year

The first open-source, freely available true 3D sound solution for creators is now official, coming to YouTube and Samsung devices first

It took more than a year to break cover since its initial announcement as IAMF, but Eclipsa Audio is now officially coming in 2025. Whether it will be able to serve creators as a true Dolby Atmos alternative remains to be seen. (Image: 5.1 Test & Clips, YouTube)

Competition within practically any market can help move things along faster and raise the quality bar of technologies, products or services, benefitting consumers — especially when the current dominant option in any given market is proprietary, inviting competition from open source alternatives. The 3D audio market has been in dire need of such an alternative to Dolby Atmos for years, which is why many members of the creative community were excited to see Samsung and Google announce the IAMF initiative (Immersive Audio Model and Formats) in late 2023. Nothing else was shared about it in 2024, though, leading many to believe that IAMF would not amount to much after all despite Google’s and Samsung’s involvement.

That’s fortunately not the case. Just ahead of CES 2025 Samsung and Google jointly announced Eclipsa Audio, which is the brand name they settled on for the open-source, freely available Dolby Atmos alternative they’ve been working on. Eclipsa Audio will strive to offer a similar multi-channel, object-based, immersive audio experience that takes into account sound location, intensity and spatial reflections in order to build a convincing “sphere of sound” around the listener. The difference being that creators can use the Eclipsa standard without paying royalties to anyone, unlike what they have to do when working with Dolby’s tools for Atmos.

Samsung’s 2025 TVs and soundbars will be the first products able to reproduce Eclipsa Audio present in YouTube videos, but the new standard will need broader support if it is to work as a Dolby Atmos alternative. (Image: Samsung)

According to Samsung and Google, creators will be able to upload Eclipsa-compatible video on YouTube later this year, which owners of Samsung TVs and soundbars will be able to enjoy with full 3D audio. The catch here is that these will only be Samsung products (and 2025 models at that), despite Eclipsa having been accepted as a sound format by the Alliance for Open Media (AOM) which Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Netflix are also members of. Samsung is a major player in the home entertainment market and a valuable partner for Eclipsa Audio at this early…