Main points
- Great visuals are essential for home theater, and immersive audio completes the movie-going experience, delivering spine-chilling moments.
- Samsung and Google’s IAMF technology enhances 3D audio with customizable features and AI scene analysis to optimize sound.
- IAMF’s focus on vertical sound enhances the listening experience, making content more engaging, immersive and authentic for viewers.
There’s no doubt that the screen is the heart of every home theater setup. Whether you use a TV or a projector, good visuals are a must in order to get the best visuals for enjoying the content you want to watch.
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However, visual effects aren’t the only important part of the movie-watching experience. If you really want to be immersed and feel the tingles down your spine as the action happens, you need a great audio setup to go with your great screen.
Immersive audio is crucial to a great movie viewing experience. Even the slightest noise and ambient sounds add to the whole experience. That’s why commercially available, easily accessible 3D audio solutions are a game-changer for viewing content at home.
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These 3D audio technologies enable you (via compatible speakers, of course) to make your audio listening completely spatial. If a leaf rustles from above your head to the right, you’ll hear it there. If the rat runs to your right, you’ll hear it there too. They go far beyond the surround sound setups of old, giving you positional audio from every corner of the room.
That’s why Samsung and Google have developed a new 3D audio technology called Immersive Audio Model and Format, or IAMF for short. Samsung ensures that next-generation 3D audio technology will revolutionize the home listening experience. So, what is it? How does this implementation differ from well-known competitors like Dolby Atmos? Read on to learn more.
What are immersive audio models and formats?
New audio technology from Samsung and Google will finally bring 3D audio to a more mainstream audience. So far, while spatial audio is great in its own right, it hasn’t really made its way into many homes because converting 3D audio data to home audio equipment is often quite difficult.
Often, even if the content you’re watching has 3D audio information available, your home audio system can’t decode and interpret it correctly. This results in a substandard sound, making it very limited and less complete and detailed. Immersive audio models and formats are a promising remedy.
IAMF should allow device manufacturers to enable their devices to decode 3D audio data and adjust it for current home audio setups. Essentially, IAMF means that your home speakers, soundbar, or other setup can take advantage of the full potential of the 3D audio signal.
Essentially, IAMF means that your home speakers, soundbar, or other setup can take advantage of the full potential of the 3D audio signal.
Additionally, IAMF is an open source standard, making it an ideal solution for manufacturers who do not want to pay additional licensing fees. Adopted by the Open Media Alliance in October 2023, it looks to be one of the best solutions for commercial 3D audio.
How do immersive audio models and formats work?
The newly developed immersive model and format technology provides three important features that enable it to enhance the 3D audio experience and work well with a variety of different systems. Their main focus is on personalization and the ability to adapt the resulting sound to the scene being displayed by dynamically enhancing it and tailoring it to your liking.
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Customizable audio
Probably the most important thing that IAMF brings to the table is the ability to customize the 3D audio experience. The format essentially separates the different layers of an audio track – for example, the commentary track and the game soundtrack when you’re watching a sports match. You can then select the tracks you want to focus on to make them more visible.
Probably the most important thing that IAMF brings to the table is the ability to customize the 3D audio experience.
Of course, this can be done with a variety of content types, so you can enhance the audio levels of a podcast or make environmental sounds more detailed when watching a nature documentary.
Samsung
AI-based scene analysis and audio effects
Samsung and Google also attach great importance to artificial intelligence and deep learning in IAMF technology. Both artificial intelligence and deep learning are used to analyze certain content scenes and dynamically adjust the audio to fit the scene, which means IAMF can automatically enhance your audio when certain scenes occur – such as boosting bass when the action bursts out of a movie and during scenes Provides a more balanced sound experience when dynamics change.
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Another benefit is the emphasis on dialogue – especially in a movie or show where a lot is happening when their characters are talking.
vertical sound
Finally, IAMF technology places a strong emphasis on the vertical aspects of the sound space. This is different from previous open source 3D audio codecs, which only supported vertical sound expression, making ordinary sounds more 2D.
This 3D codec is extremely important for creating a more natural and engaging sound environment.
This 3D codec is extremely important for creating a more natural and engaging sound environment. Sounds like birds flying above or water flowing below will now be recorded as coming to you from 3D space, making what you’re watching even more enjoyable, extremely engaging and realistic.
The future of IAMF
Samsung and Google are working together to create an open source standard for 3D spatial audio, hoping to unlock audio possibilities and bring audio setups, especially home audio setups, into a new era.
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3D audio isn’t just good news for all moviegoers. This technology is also crucial for any content that attempts to engross you, engage you, and allow you to fully experience it. This means 3D audio is good news for areas such as virtual universes, games, and VR. All of these will truly benefit from the immersion promised by IAMF.
VR can benefit greatly from this 3D sound, making the virtual reality experience even better by making localized audio as immersive as the 3D environments the best VR headsets can provide. This is great news not only for VR gamers, but also for VR live music performances or other types of VR experiences.
Of course, both creative companies are also looking to build their own sound ecosystems based on the new standard, which means we can expect new devices from Google and Samsung to support it and further enhance the sound experience in our homes.
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In the long run, the most important part of the IAMF standard is that it is open source. This means it costs less for manufacturers to license the format, making it easier (and cheaper) to create new devices compatible with this 3D audio solution. In turn, this means cheaper devices for us consumers.