Quality assessment apparatus and method
First Claim
1. An apparatus for assessing the perceptual quality of speech signals transmitted via a telecommunications network and recorded acoustically from an acoustic terminal device comprising:
- a front end processor for aligning a mono reference signal comprising a single channel with a degraded stereo signal comprising a first channel and a second channel, said front end processor comprising a leveller for adjusting the power levels of said signals and a time aligner for determining the estimated delays for each of said channels of said degraded signal;
an auditory transformer for generating a set of perceptually relevant parameters for each of said signals; and
a comparator for comparing said perceptually relevant parameters to generate disturbance profiles; and
a modeller for generating a speech quality prediction in dependence upon said disturbance profiles;
in which said front end processor further comprises a noise masking determiner for comparing signal parameters of each of said channels of said degraded signal and generating a noise masking indicator in dependence upon said parameters; and
in which said disturbance profiles are dependent upon said noise masking indicator.
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Abstract
This invention relates to a speech quality assessment system. The invention provides a method and apparatus for assessing the perceptual quality of stereo speech signals transmitted via a telecommunications network and recorded acoustically from an acoustic terminal device in which a mono reference signal comprising a single channel is aligned with a degraded stereo signal comprising a left and a right channel; a delay between each channel of said degraded signal and said reference signal is estimated; a noise masking indicator in dependence upon said estimated delays is generated; the level of the stereo signals is adjusted in dependence upon said noise masking indicator; a set of perceptually relevant parameters for each of said reference and degraded signals are generated; the perceptually relevant parameters of the reference signal with the perceptually relevant parameters of the degraded signal to generate a disturbance profile are compared; and a speech quality prediction is generated in dependence upon said disturbance profile.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. An apparatus for assessing the perceptual quality of speech signals transmitted via a telecommunications network and recorded acoustically from an acoustic terminal device comprising:
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a front end processor for aligning a mono reference signal comprising a single channel with a degraded stereo signal comprising a first channel and a second channel, said front end processor comprising a leveller for adjusting the power levels of said signals and a time aligner for determining the estimated delays for each of said channels of said degraded signal;
an auditory transformer for generating a set of perceptually relevant parameters for each of said signals; and
a comparator for comparing said perceptually relevant parameters to generate disturbance profiles; and
a modeller for generating a speech quality prediction in dependence upon said disturbance profiles;
in which said front end processor further comprises a noise masking determiner for comparing signal parameters of each of said channels of said degraded signal and generating a noise masking indicator in dependence upon said parameters; and
in which said disturbance profiles are dependent upon said noise masking indicator. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A method of assessing the perceptual quality of stereo speech signals transmitted via a telecommunications network and recorded acoustically from an acoustic terminal device comprising the steps of:
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aligning a mono reference signal comprising a single channel with a degraded stereo signal comprising a first channel and a second channel;
estimating a delay between each channel of said degraded signal and said reference signal;
generating a noise masking indicator in dependence upon a comparison of corresponding signal parameters for each channel;
generating a set of perceptually relevant parameters for each of said reference and degraded signals;
comparing said perceptually relevant parameters of the reference signal with the perceptually relevant parameters of the degraded signal to generate disturbance profiles; and
generating a speech quality prediction in dependence upon said disturbance profiles;
wherein said generated disturbance profiles are dependent upon said noise masking indicator. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification