Method of Encoding and Decoding an Audio Signal

• US 20090234656A1
• Filed: 05/26/2006
• Published: 09/17/2009
• 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 8,150,701 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 in either a case of embedding the side information in the audio signal by a frame unit with a frame length defined per a frame or a case of attaching the side information to the audio signal by a frame unit; and

decoding the audio signal using the extracted side information.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising extracting discriminating information indicating whether a start point of the frame within the frame and a start point of a decoding frame for the side information are matched.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising extracting discriminating information indicating whether there exists a decoding frame header for the side information within the frame.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising extracting discriminating information indicating whether there exists position information of the audio signal to which the side information is applied within the decoding frame header.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising extracting the position information of the audio signal according to the discriminating information.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the length of the frame is a positive integer and is obtained by multiplying or dividing a decoding frame length of the side information with N, wherein N is a positive integer.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the frame length corresponds to a fixed length.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein, if the audio signal is a first audio signal, the side information is embedded in the audio signal.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein, if the audio signal is a second audio signal, the side information is attached to the audio signal.

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

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

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

a side information extracting unit for extracting side information in case that the side information is embedded in the audio signal by a frame unit with a frame length defined per a frame or in case that the side information is attached to the audio signal by a frame unit; and

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

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the extracted side information further comprises discriminating information indicating whether a start point of the frame within the frame and a start point of a decoding frame for the side information are matched.

14. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the extracted side information further comprises discriminating information indicating whether there exists a decoding frame header for the side information within the frame.

15. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the length of the frame is a positive integer and is obtained by multiplying or dividing a decoding frame length of the side information with N, wherein N is a positive integer.

16. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein, if the audio signal is a first audio signal, the side information is embedded in the audio signal.

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

generating side information necessary for decoding an audio signal; and

executing either a step of embedding the side information in the audio signal by a frame unit with a frame length defined per a frame or a step of attaching the side information to the audio signal by a frame unit.

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

a side information generating unit for generating side information necessary for decoding an audio signal; and

a side information attaching unit for performing a process of embedding the side information in the audio signal by a frame unit with a frame length defined per a frame or a process of attaching the side information to the audio signal by a frame unit.