LG is adding support for Samsung's new Dolby Atmos rival to some of its TVs — though don't expect HDR10+ support to follow this new-found detente | Tech Radar

Overview

LG is adding support for Samsung's new Dolby Atmos rival to some of its TVs — though don't expect HDR10+ support to follow this new-found detente

There's an obvious reason why Eclipsa Audio is harder to avoid using

Details

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The LG G6 (left) and LG G5 (right) will both get Eclipsa Audio support (Image credit: LG)

LG is adding support for the Eclipsa Audio format to its 2026 models, as well as to certain 2025 TVs. This is an alternative to Dolby Atmos, delivering spatial audio over streaming, and was notably developed by Samsung and Google.

According to a report from Flatpanels HD, all of LG's 2026 TVs will support Eclipsa Audio, and support has been added to the following 2025 TVs via a free update: the LG G5, the LG C5, the LG CS5, and the LG QNED9M.

Flatpanels HD says the format will be supported for playback over the TVs' built-in speakers, or can be passed out to compatible soundbars (such as the Samsung HW-Q990F).

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Eclipsa Audio is being released by the Alliance for Open Media, much like HDR10+ is, and has no licensing fees or royalties, so companies can choose to support based purely on whether they think the technical development is worth it. All of this is true of HDR10+ as well, but LG has never seen fit to support the rival to Dolby Vision — we'll come back to why I think it's different this time, though.

We spoke to Samsung in-depth in the past about why it developed Eclipsa Audio, what it hoped to achieve, and why it believed Dolby Atmos couldn't be the sole future for 3D sound.

Samsung said that it wasn't to expand into areas where Dolby Atmos either isn't widely already used, or is prohibitive. "Dolby is not involved in gaming seriously, and they’re not involved in in-car audio," said Samsung Audio Lab VP Allan Devantier (though I should add that Dolby definitely invests a lot in in-car audio — see the Cadillac Optiq this year).

Samsung is particularly keen for Eclipsa Audio to be used by smaller content creators, which Devantier says "can’t make immersive content because to make Atmos content costs too much money." The idea of offering spatial sound to small creators seems to be Google's goal as well, because it's already integrated the technology into You Tube.

There are ambitions for Eclipsa Audio to be used by movies and TVs as a full rival to Atmos for large-scale productions, though: Samsung said "we're working with Netflix and Amazon" on the format, though no announcements have been made there.

Analysis: a surprise, given LG cautiousness with other formats

Some TV brands, such as TCL and Hisense, like to embrace a ton of formats, which helps to give their TVs a sense of being incredible value. LG is a lot more circumspect about such things, usually.

The company has supported DTS audio formats at times in the past, but that's been on and off — it's currently off. LG also told me at a recent event that it still has no immediate plans to support Dolby Vision 2, and representatives were unsure if the 2026 TVs could even be updated to support it in the future.

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This decision was based on the lack of Dolby Vision 2 content currently — LG said it would consider support when there are things to watch that fully make use of the format.

Now, one might note that both DTS and Dolby Vision 2 require paying a fee to include in a set, so there's a strong reason for a business not to support them if it doesn't think it's a problem to exclude them.

However, HDR10+ doesn't require a fee to support, but LG has always been vehemently against it, instead focusing solely on Dolby Vision HDR. In the past, LG's answer has usually been similar to the Dolby Vision 2 answer: that there wasn't enough content to justify adding support.

More recently, HDR10+ has been added to more streaming services (including Apple TV+ and its movie rentals, Disney+ in some countries, including some Hulu content, and Paramount+ on some content), so last year I asked LG about adding support, given that it's now more widely available.

The company said that it still doesn't see the point, claiming pretty much anything available in HDR10+ will be available in Dolby Vision too. It also said that it believes its own tone mapping processing is superior to HDR10+, removing the need for it, and that it was simply likely never to support it.

So, why is Eclipsa different? Well, I suspect it's to do with something I mentioned above: You Tube. You Tube doesn't, and I suspect never will, support Dolby Atmos. You Tube is also more popular on TVs than even the likes of Netflix and Disney+. And TVs have become the most popular way to watch You Tube, surpassing even phones.

If people start expecting and enjoying things on You Tube with more immersive Eclipsa Audio, then LG doesn't want to be left as a platform where you're not getting the best sound from the most popular streaming app. Especially since Samsung already supports Eclipsa Audio, and Google TV supporting Eclipsa means TCL, Hisense, and Sony will surely all include the format. And if Samsung's been working with Amazon, we can assume Fire TV sets may support it at some point.

LG could afford to be 'left out' of HDR10+ because, as it rightly said, Dolby Vision was the only game in town for so long in practice, and is still the bigger player. But Eclipsa Audio will make its impact in places that Atmos will likely never reach, so it makes sense for LG to actually join Samsung in an upstart format, for once.

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Key Takeaways

• LG is adding support for Samsung's new Dolby Atmos rival to some of its TVs — though don't expect HDR10+ support to follow this new-found detente

• There's an obvious reason why Eclipsa Audio is harder to avoid using

• When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission

• The LG G6 (left) and LG G5 (right) will both get Eclipsa Audio support (Image credit: LG)

• LG is adding support for the Eclipsa Audio format to its 2026 models, as well as to certain 2025 TVs