Before the start of CES 2025 in Las Vegas, Samsung Office has partnered that its spatial audio collaboration with Google could use it 2025 TVs and sound bars. The finer details of the platform were noticeably absent from that announcement, with the company only announcing that 3D Eclipsa Audio will be available this year for YouTube content creators. There is also the general explanation that the platform will enable creators “to adjust audio data such as the location and intensity of sounds, along with spatial reflections, to create an immersive three-dimensional that sound experience,” according to the press release.

If that sounds like Dolby Atmos to you, that’s what I think Samsung and Google are trying to replicate here. And if that’s the case, if Samsung really wants its own immersive audio standard, there’s a backstory worth going back to here. In 2023, Samsung and Google first revealed their spatial audio ambitions. At that time, Samsung said that its research division has been working on 3D audio since 2020 and the first fruits of the collaboration are the open-source Immersive Audio Model and Formats (IAMF) adopted by the Alliance for Open Media (AOM) in October 2023.

There’s also the fact that Samsung doesn’t offer Dolby Vision on its TVs. Instead, the company uses HDR10+, an open-source and royalty-free platform for encoding HDR metadata. And in that 2023 audio announcement, WooHyun Nam of Samsung Research explained that 3D sound technology should also be open to everyone. “Providing a complete open-source framework for 3D audio, from creation to delivery and playback, will allow for even more diverse audio content experiences in the future,” he said.

Samsung now supports Dolby Atmos on its soundbars, including its flagship Q990 series and the newly announced QS700F. It seems the company no longer wants to pay to license Atmos from Dolby. And to still offer immersive 3D audio in its products, this collaboration with Google aims to create an alternative. It should be noted that AOM counts Amazon, Apple and Netflix among its members, in addition to Google, Samsung and others. The group’s AV1 video format was introduced in 2018 and is now used by Netflix, YouTube, Twitch and other sites.

The strange thing about all this is that no one from Samsung wants to talk about Eclipsa Audio. I attended several events and product demos hosted by the company this week and the response when I asked about it was “we haven’t been told anything” or “let me see if I can find someone who can talk about it.” The latter, of course, never shows a “one person” or a follow-up. I even asked a rep to tell me if the company wasn’t ready to discuss the details and never heard back.

The most detailed explanation I’ve seen this week from Armwhich is apparently also working on the development of Eclipsa Audio with Samsung and Google. The chip designer said Eclipsa is a multi-channel audio surround sound format built by IMAF. Vertical and horizontal channels create immersive sound, with the aim of making movies, music and television shows more engaging in your living room. Again, that’s exactly what Dolby Atmos does.

Arm further explains that Eclipsa Audio can automatically adjust the sound based on the scene and has a level of customization for users. The bitstream can contain up to 28 input channels that can be fixed (instruments or microphones) or dynamic (vehicles in movie scenes), with support for LPCM, AAC, FLAC and Opus codecs. Binaural rendering is also available for earbuds and headphones, and the new technology can be used by content creators using consumer devices in their workflow.

Currently, Samsung and Google only list YouTube as a platform or service where Eclipsa Audio content is available. If the duo really wants to compete with Dolby Atmos, that list will have to expand quickly. Additionally, Dolby already has brand recognition and broad adoption in the audio and home theater categories for Atmos. It is even available in cars.

Samsung said in its pre-CES announcement that it and Google will work with the Telecommunications Technology Association (TTA) to create a certification program for devices that support Eclipsa Audio. So, it seems serious groundwork is being laid to get this technology into devices, starting with Samsung’s own 2025 TV and soundbar. However, as we have seen with Sony 360 Reality Audio and the early days of Dolby Atmos Music, it can take some time to build a compelling content library. That means Samsung will probably have to keep reminding us that Eclipsa Audio is a thing, even if it doesn’t say it anymore.