Sony has announced an expansion of its 360 Reality Audio platform, bringing the 360-degree music format to more devices and media, as well as offering new creative tools. 360 Reality Audio uses object-based spatial sound technology to place instruments or song around the listener’s head in a virtual sound field.
Now Sony is expanding the audio technology to video. The company says it is later working with record companies and service providers to start streaming video content with 360 Reality Audio, and the first example is a live performance by artist Zara Larsson, signed by Sony, next week. You can watch it through Sony’s Artist Connection phone on January 11th at 5pm ET.
Sony is launching two new 360 Reality Audio compatible speakers this spring, the SRS-RA5000 and SRS-RA3000, although there is not much more information about Amazon’s Alexa and the Google Assistant. Sony has also developed a new 3D audio plug-in called the 360 Reality Audio Creative Suite, which is compatible with DAWs such as Pro Tools and will be released at the end of this month.
There are currently about 4,000 songs available in 360 Reality Audio for services like Tidal and Deezer, Sony says. The format works with most common headphones or compatible speakers such as Amazon’s Echo Studio.