What's New in v1.6.0 (Beta)

Orbit 1.6.0 is in beta. It adds three new pages — the Analyser, the Playlist and Structure — opens the Monitor View to every edition, rebuilds video playback and scrubbing, adds 360° video, and brings every export into one Export Audio window, with speaker-layout and ambisonic targets.

This page covers every 1.6.0 beta so far. For the current release, see What's New in v1.5.

How to read this page

Sections labelled (Pro) are part of Orbit Pro. Everything else is included in the free Orbit edition. See the overview for a full Standard / Pro breakdown.

The 1.6.0 betas are in progress. Features may change before the stable release.

Betas 1–2 — two new pages, and Monitor for everyone

• Analyser (Pro) — a new full-page workspace: a customisable grid of analysis modules — Spectrum, the programme's Loudness journey, Comet, Topology, Goniometer, Correlation, Matrix, Spectrum Field and big-number loudness tiles. Arrange them and save your own layouts. Read more.
• Spatial RTA — switch the spectrum to SPA and it draws one trace per speaker group, coloured to match. Read more.
• Playlist (Pro) — the album home: every track in the session as a full-width waveform lane with its loudness and duration, played through in order with Play Album. Read more.
• Monitor View in every edition — per-speaker solo and mute and the Smart groups are no longer Pro; creating a custom speaker group is. The 3D view reads with depth, and speakers on the far side of the sphere can now be soloed. Read more.
• Loudness pass ranges and named custom targets — every delivery target has its own pass range, which no longer has to be symmetric, with a warn margin and optional no-minimum / no-maximum; keep as many named custom targets as you need. Read more.
• Try Orbit Pro from the app — with no licence yet, start a 14-day Orbit Pro trial on this Mac straight from the sign-in screen. Read more.

Beta 3 — video that plays at its own frame rate (Pro)

• Frame-accurate playback — frames are presented on a clock slaved to the transport, the way QuickTime and Final Cut do it, fixing the stutter 50/60 fps clips could show. Read more.
• Filmstrip thumbnails appear almost all at once.
• Smoother 4K scrubbing.
• Thumbnails and optimising step out of the way while a clip is playing.

Beta 4 — the picture's own colour, and QuickTime-style scrubbing (Pro)

• Colour — frames carry the colour tags of the file they came from (BT.709, or HDR tags for HDR footage).
• Optimised media is ProRes only — ProRes 422 Proxy, LT or 422. Read more.
• Optimising no longer fights playback — it pauses while the transport plays and resumes when you stop.
• Scrubbing the way QuickTime scrubs — one persistent decoder per clip, latest target wins, keyframe first on long-GOP footage with the exact frame when you stop. Read more.

Beta 5 — one Export Audio window

• One Export Audio window (File → Export Audio…, ⇧⌘B) — tick every layout you deliver and every track, choose a folder, and Orbit writes every file in one go. Read more.
• Export to any speaker layout — 7.1.6, 9.1.4, 9.1.6 (wide) and quad join the list, and custom layouts appear under their own heading. WAV, MOV and MP4.
• Export to ambisonics (Pro) — 1st, 2nd and 3rd order AmbiX (ACN / SN3D).
• Apple Spatial Audio is its own target and exports alongside everything else.
• Exports ignore solo and mute — always the full mix at unity gain.
• Faster exports — 3–10× faster, with several files rendering at once, and a progress view that settles each file as it finishes.
• Filenames changed — the layout's own display name (_Stereo → _Stereo20). Update any delivery scripts that match on the old suffixes.
• Exporting more than one layout or more than one track is part of Orbit Pro; Standard exports one binaural file of one track, as before.

Beta 6 — the Command Palette

• Command Palette (⌘K, or the ⌘K button in the top bar) — type to reach any page, window or Preferences pane, flip a setting, drive the transport, jump to a marker, solo an object or reopen a recent file. Settings rows show their current value; Pro-only rows show a lock; destructive commands ask for a second Return. Read more.

Also in the latest beta

• Batch ADM to Eclipsa Audio™ Export (Pro) — File → Batch ADM to Eclipsa Audio™ Export… turns every ADM master in the session playlist into Eclipsa Audio™ (IAMF) files in one go: tick tracks and presets, one file per pair, edit any single file's graph, check everything before it's written, name files with wildcards, and get a PDF + CSV delivery report beside the files. Read more.
• The Instruments window — pop the Analyser's rack out into its own window (View → Show Instruments Window, ⌥⌘R), for a second display. Read more.
• Video plays live (Pro) — clips play from their originals straight away, the viewer draws at its size on screen and steps down on its own if playback can't keep up, and optimised media is created when you ask for it (or on import, if you turn that on). Read more.
• The Structure page — a seventh page in the Mode Bar that lays out a file's programmes, groups, folders and tracks in an outline and a sortable table, with an inspector for the selected tracks and a plan of each object's path. Reading it is free, for ADM and IAMF alike. Read more.
• Edit ADM metadata (Pro) — on the Structure page: rename, create groups and folders, move tracks between them, set language, dialogue, gain, importance, listener controls and alternatives, and remove tracks (including every silent one at once). Edits are undoable, kept in your session, and never touch the original file; File → Export ADM with Edits… writes a new, checked master. Read more.
• The Inspect sidebar is for monitoring — groups, folders and tracks with solo, mute and activity, a Groups | Tracks switch, rename in place (Pro), and Show in Structure on every row. Read more.
• Every file starts with a clean mix — loading a file or switching session clears solos and mutes. Your setup — output device, speaker layout, routing, monitoring mode and master level — stays as it was.
• Your speaker layout is remembered — the output layout and monitoring mode now survive quitting and reopening Orbit.
• Head tracking — Recenter works wherever your head is pointing, and when tracking stops (or your headphones disconnect) the sound returns to facing front. Read more.

360° video (Pro)

• Play 360° footage on the Video View — full-sphere mono equirectangular clips are detected from their spherical video metadata, and each clip has a 360° Video setting (Auto / On / Off) for files that lost their metadata. Stereoscopic, cubemap and 180° layouts are recognised but not supported yet; they play flat. Read more.
• Look around — drag to turn the view, scroll or pinch to zoom (30–120°), double-click to face front, and switch between Viewport and the whole Flat frame. A compass shows your heading.
• Sound follows view — in binaural, the mix turns with the picture, so you hear what a viewer in a headset hears. Speakers and stereo never turn. With head tracking on, your head turns the picture too.
• Objects on the picture — every object's position marked on the 360° frame as it plays, with Names to label them and arrows at the edge for objects behind you.
• A 2:1 canvas, automatically — while a 360° clip is on the timeline the canvas is 2:1; your aspect setting comes back when it's gone. New 360° resolutions (4K, 5.7K and 8K 360°) and new flat ones (1440p, 4K DCI, 6K, 8K UHD). Read more.
• Smoother starts — pressing Play with pre-roll, or straight after a seek, starts on frames that are already decoded, so the picture no longer catches up for a moment after the sound.
• Faster title typing — typing into a title stays instant at any canvas size, 8K and 360° included.

---

Upgrading

Orbit 1.6.0 is a beta. The minimum macOS version is unchanged (macOS 14 Sonoma).

Looking for the previous release notes? See What's New in v1.5.