Draft:IAMF
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{{Short description|A AOMedia IAMF format}}
{{Draft topics|media|computing|technology}}
{{AfC topic|stem}}
{{Infobox file format
| name = Immersive Audio Model and Formats (IAMF)
| icon = IAMF Logo.png
| icon_size = 230px
| extension = .iamf
| developer = Alliance for Open Media
| type = Audio
| standard = [https://aomediacodec.github.io/iamf/latest-approved.html AOM IAMF]
| free = Yes
| open = Yes
| url = https://aomedia.org/specifications/iamf/
}}
IAMF (Immersive Audio Model and Formats), also marketed under the name Eclipsa Audio.{{Cite web |title=Introducing Eclipsa Audio: immersive audio for everyone |url=https://opensource.googleblog.com/2025/01/introducing-eclipsa-audio-immersive-audio-for-everyone.html |access-date=2025-05-03 |website=Google Open Source Blog}} is a free and open-source surround sound container format developed by the Alliance for Open Media. IAMF aims to compete with other technologies, like Dolby Atmos.{{Cite web |last=Mishra |first=Abhijeet |date=2024-01-22 |title=Samsung's Dolby Atmos surround sound alternative coming this year |url=https://www.sammobile.com/news/samsung-iamf-dolby-atmos-surround-sound-alternative-coming-2024/ |access-date=2025-05-03 |website=SamMobile |language=en-US}}
History
In the late 2020s the development of IAMF was started by the Alliance for Open Media, which had previously developed the AV1 video codec. The format was created for flexible, scalable, and royalty-free immersive audio solutions suitable for transmission over the internet.
Proprietary immersive audio technologies such as Dolby Atmos and MPEG-H 3D Audio is limited by licensing restrictions, lack of open tooling and that they are specific to codecs.
A reference encoder, decoder, and renderer were made publicly available in 2023. In the same year, early draft specifications were published for public comment and interoperability testing.
In 2024, AOM released IAMF's first stable draft specification.
FFmpeg added support with version 7.0.{{Cite web |title=FFmpeg 7.0 changelog |url=https://git.videolan.org/?p=ffmpeg.git;a=blob_plain;f=Changelog;hb=n7.0 |access-date=2025-05-04}}
Technology
While IAMF is codec agnostic{{Cite web |title=What is IAMF? |url=https://aomedia.org/specifications/iamf/ |access-date=2025-05-03 |website=Alliance for Open Media |language=en}}, the standard only officially supports Opus, AAC, FLAC, and PCM, with Opus being the most common.
IAMF leverages the audio codec in mono or stereo configurations for individual audio elements, which are later combined at the rendering stage.
Each audio element can be:
- Channel-based: fixed speaker locations (e.g., stereo, 5.1)
- Object-based: independently rendered with metadata for position and motion
- Scene-based: ambisonic or other global spatial formats
= Audio Scene Metadata =
IAMF has a structured scene description that defines:
- Object positioning in 3D space
- Trajectories and motion paths
- Groups of objects (e.g., music, dialogue, effects)
- Mixing hierarchies and rendering presets (e.g., "cinema", "headphones", "dialogue boost")
It can also contain DRC for volume normalization.
Metadata is designed to be flexible and extensible, allowing future features like personalization or dynamic re-panning.
Adoption
As of 2025, adoption remains is small, with the most notable implementation being by YouTube. IAMF is advertised under the branding Eclipsa Audio. IAMF is used with Opus, and all creators can upload surround content, following the recommendations.{{Cite web |title=YouTube recommended upload encoding settings - YouTube Help |url=https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171?hl=en |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20250430130104/https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171?hl=en |archive-date=2025-04-30 |access-date=2025-05-03 |website=support.google.com |language=en}}
Only hardware capable of playback is Samsung's 2025 Neo QLED 8K TVs. Google reported that support for IAMF will soon come to Google Chrome, Android and soundbars in late 2025.
See also
References
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