Wondering what Immersive Audio Model and Formats (IAMF) is?
IAMF is an open container and metadata format, wrapping around encoded audio streams (e.g., Opus streams) and adding spatial metadata to better position audio in media.
But Why?
The modern way to encode and decode spatial audio is through Dolby Atmos, which is a beautiful product idea already.
The issue? Everybody and their mother owes Dolby money.
If a streaming service (e.g., Netflix) wants to provide spatial audio, they have to pay a license to Dolby to encode raw audio into Dolby Atmos.
Then, for your TV or soundbar to decode and play that audio, the TV company (e.g., Samsung or whatever) has to pay royalties to Dolby for the privilege of decoding it.
Enter IAMF
The Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) created this IAMF initiative to offer a royalty-free format for anyone to use.
Streaming services won’t have to pay Dolby to provide spatial audio to their users.
TVs or soundbars won’t have to pay to allow spatial audio to be rendered for their users.
At the end of the day, it is a win-win for all movie/tv watchers, democratizing spatial audio for the common person.
I’m not a Software Engineer, why should I care?
One of the most important features: Mix Presentations.
Basically, this means that movies can be mixed in different ways more easily. This allows the viewer to edit the gain of different audio sources, meaning you can raise the volume on the dialogue in a Christopher Nolan movie and can finally understand what the hell everyone is saying.
What’s next?
Look for Eclipsa Audio, the current branding that Google and Samsung use for IAMF capability.
disclaimer: I work at Google, a founding member of AOMedia.