Google wants to take on Dolby with new open media formats

…for 16 months until they cancel the project.

Am I understanding this correctly that this would be a push and rebranding of HDR10+?

Yes, if this article is correct Google will leverage HDR10+ as part of an umbrella brand (i.e. "Google Vision") for HDR and 3D audio. I'm not aware of an open/royalty-free standard for 3D audio, so Google might have to create that.

> two new media formats to offer HDR video and 3D audio

Taken into account what Youtube has to offer in terms of audio and video quality i would say they can claim they already have it. Scaling and prediction is cheap those days.

YouTube supports HDR via existing HDR-capable file (MP4, MKV, MOV) and media formats (VP9 Profile 2, AV1, HEVC/H.265, ProRes 422, ProRes 4444, DNxHR HQX, H.264 10-bit), but this article is about Google creating new open/royalty-free formats (under unified branding) for HDR and 3D audio.