For decades, Dolby Labs has dominated the audio and video formats. The Dolby Atmos label for audio and the Dolby Vision label for video are synonymous with quality when buying a TV, a soundbar, or subscribing to a streaming service.
Dolby's business strategy, based on licensing its technologies, allows the company to earn revenue from every compatible device, totaling hundreds of millions, which has helped establish an image of immediate excellence, even though it does not manufacture physical products.
However, audiovisual formats are being reshaped due to the emergence of new alternatives that do not involve such royalties—open source.
The consumer electronics industry, with its very tight profit margins, has contributed to the development of options with no additional costs.
For example, when it comes to videos, Dolby Vision has become established on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs and in streaming services that offer High Dynamic Range (HDR) titles. Shortly after its debut, a consortium led by Samsung developed HDR10+, an open-source format that—following Netflix’s announcement that it would incorporate this system into all its HDR titles by the end of 2025—is eroding Dolby Vision’s dominance.
In the field of audio, Dolby Atmos has established itself as synonymous with spatial sound, with an undeniable presence in movies, TV shows, and music recordings, surpassing even its closest competitors, such as DTS:X and Sony 360 Reality Audio.
A few years ago, Samsung opted for Dolby Atmos in the hope of replicating its success, but this time it partnered with Google and the Open Media Alliance—comprising companies such as Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, THX, and Nvidia—to create a new format initially known as IAMF and later renamed Eclipsa Audio at CES 2025. This system allows any professional or manufacturer to offer spatial audio at no additional cost, and its first implementation in hardware can be found in Samsung’s HW-Q990F soundbar.
As they say, sometimes new things have to earn users' affection.
Despite the new open-source alternative, Eclipsa Audio, it is by no means likely that Dolby Vision or Dolby Atmos will disappear anytime soon. The brand’s reputation remains a guarantee of quality, which motivates companies to continue adopting Dolby technologies, even though it will require a significant marketing effort for the new formats to be accepted in the same way.
But for HDR10+ and Eclipsa to achieve the same level of recognition, they will also need a major marketing push. Obviously, everything could change if a giant like Apple decided to back these alternatives with the same vigor with which it has supported Dolby.
But in the meantime, Dolby continues to innovate, and one of its latest developments is Dolby Atmos Flex Connect, a technology that allows TV manufacturers to offer wireless speakers that can be placed anywhere in a room without the need for a central soundbar.
