Method of Encoding and Decoding an Audio Signal

• US 20090216541A1
• Filed: 05/26/2006
• Published: 08/27/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/26/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Original Assignee: LG Electronics USA Incorporated (LG Corporation)
• Inventors: Pang, Hee Suk, Oh, Hyen-O, Lim, Jae Hyun, Kim, Dong Soo, Jung, Yang-Won
• Granted Patent: US 8,170,883 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/500
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 19/008 Multichannel audio signal coding or decoding using interchannel correlation to reduce redundancy, e.g. joint-stereo, intensity-coding or matrixing
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 19/018 Audio watermarking, i.e. embedding inaudible data in the audio signal
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 19/167 Audio streaming, i.e. formatting and decoding of an encoded audio signal representation into a data stream for transmission or storage purposes
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/89 using three or more audio channels, e.g. triphonic or quadraphonic

Abstract

An apparatus for encoding and decoding an audio signal and method thereof are disclosed, by which compatibility with a player of a general mono or stereo audio signal can be provided in coding an audio signal and by which spatial information for a multi-channel audio signal can be stored or transmitted without a presence of an auxiliary data area. The present invention includes extracting side information embedded in non-recognizable component of audio signal components and decoding the audio signal using the extracted side information.

Claims

1. A method of decoding an audio signal, comprising:

extracting side information embedded in the audio signal corresponding to at least one channel of the audio signal; and

decoding the audio signal using the side information.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the side information is embedded in an insertion area of the audio signal by a block unit.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the side information in the insertion area is embedded in a sample plane order or a bit plane order.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the side information in the insertion area is embedded from MSB (most significant bit) or LSB (least significant bit).

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the side information is embedded in the insertion area by alternating channels.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising extracting sync information for the side information from at least one channel of the audio signal.

7. The method of claim 1, the extracting of side information comprising extracting the side information by a sample unit up to an insertion frame end of the side information.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein a header for the side information is embedded in the audio signal having at least one channel in a bit plane order and wherein an area except the header is embedded in a sample plane order.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising extracting an insertion bit length for the side information from a header of the side information.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the audio signal includes a downmix signal for a multi-channel signal.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the side information includes spatial information for a multi-channel signal.

8. The method of claim 8, wherein the side information is repeatedly embedded in the audio signal having at least two channels with a same value or with values of opposite signs.

13. An apparatus for decoding an audio signal, comprising:

an embedded signal decoding unit decoding the audio signal and extracting side information embedded in the audio signal corresponding to at least one channel of the audio signal; and

a multi-channel generating unit for decoding the audio signal using the side information.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the side information is embedded in an insertion area of the audio signal by a block unit.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the side information in the insertion area is embedded in a sample plane order or a bit plane order.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the side information in the insertion area is embedded from MSB (most significant bit) or LSB (least significant bit).

17. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the side information is embedded in the insertion area by alternating channels.

18. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the embedded signal decoding unit further extracts sync information for the side information from at least one channel of the audio signal.

19. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the embedded signal decoding unit decoding a header of the side information is embedded in the audio signal having at least one channel according to a bit plane order and an area of the side information except the header is embedded according to a sample plane order.

20. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the embedded signal decoding unit further extracts insertion bit length for the side information from a header of the side information.

21. A method of encoding an audio signal, comprising:

generating side information necessary for decoding the audio signal; and

embedding the side information in the audio signal corresponding to at least one channel of the audio signal.

22. An apparatus for encoding an audio signal, comprising:

an audio signal generating unit generating downmixed audio signal from multi-channel audio signal;

a side information generating unit generating side information from the multi-channel audio signal;

a side information encoding unit encoding the generated side information; and

an embedding unit embedding the side information in the audio signal corresponding to at least one channel of the audio signal.

23. (canceled)