LG Electronics will add support for the new Eclipsa Audio 3D surround sound format on all of its 2026 TVs, plus a select number of 2025 models.
Eclipsa Audio is already supported on multiple Samsung TVs, and will also come to every top-tier LG TV launched this year, including the LG G6, W6 and C6. In addition, the company told FlatpanelsHD it is rolling out a firmware update that will add Eclipsa Audio support to the LG G5, C5 and QNED9M, the company said.
Eclipsa Audio is a royalty-free 3D sound format that was designed by Google and Samsung and released through the Alliance for Open Media. It’s considered to be a rival to Dolby Atmos, which is a proprietary offering that requires licensing fees to be paid.
Because Eclipsa Audio is free to use, companies are free to support the technology if they think it’s going to add enough value to their products. It’s similar in this way to HDR10+, which is a royalty-free High Dynamic Range format that rivals Dolby Vision HDR.
Samsung has said in the past that it’s planning to encourage smaller content creators to adopt Eclipsa Audio. Many creators – such as YouTubers – can’t add immersive sound to their content because Dolby’s fees for licensing Dolby Atmos are too expensive. Google has similar ambitions, having added support for Eclipsa Audio on YouTube.
It’s believed the companies are targeting much bigger players, too. While no major Hollywood studios have voiced their support for the tech yet, Samsung has previously stated it’s working with Netflix and Amazon Prime Video to support the format on their streaming platforms.
While Chinese brands such as Hisense and TCL tend to embrace multiple formats to enhance the value of their products, LG and Samsung have always been much choosier about the technologies they support.
For instance, Samsung has been steadfast in its refusal to adopt Dolby Vision, although it did adopt Dolby Atmos a couple of years back. But it’s 100% committed to HDR10+. LG, on the other hand, rejects HDR10+ in favor of Dolby Vision. LG has previously justified its stance, saying that HDR10+ doesn’t have a big enough content base. That has begun to change with Apple TV+ and Disney+ adding support for HDR10+, but LG has insisted it’s still not worth bothering with, because whatever HDR10+ content can be found will also be available in Dolby Vision. It also believes it has superior tone mapping processing technology compared to what’s used in HDR10+.
In terms of audio, LG has had an on-and-off relationship with DTS:X, which is an alternative to Dolby Atmos. It twice added support, only to remove that support in 2020 and again in 2025, and hasn’t indicated any plans to use the format again in its 2026 or future TVs. It's reasoning is similar to HDR10+, in that it believes there's not enough content around to justify supporting the tech.
But it seems Eclipsa has more appeal for LG. The company hasn’t really said why, but it’s likely because of YouTube, which lacks support for Dolby Vision and seemingly has no intention of adding it in future. YouTube is, perhaps surprisingly, viewed on TVs even more than Netflix. So there’s a huge audience for this technology.
If Eclipsa Audio becomes the standard for YouTube creators wanting to offer more immersive experiences, then LG needs to support it, given how popular such content is. Otherwise, its TVs would have an inferior sound experience for one of the world’s most popular sources of TV content. It seems likely that Sony, TCL, Hisense and others will support Eclipsa in future too, because they all use the Google TV platform, which is actively promoting the technology.
Given that Eclipsa Audio is trying to reach places that Dolby Atmos probably never will, LG has decided it cannot afford to be left behind.
