Audio reproducing apparatus, audio reproducing method, and program

• US 7,877,156 B2
• Filed: 04/05/2005
• Issued: 01/25/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/06/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Fujimoto, Kazuo, Katayama, Taro, Okada, Tomoyuki
• Primary Examiner(s): Mei; Xu
• Application Number:
  US11/547,305
• Publication Number:
  US 20080037151A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,121 Days
• Field of Search: 381/61, 381/80, 381/119, 381 22- 23, 700/94, 386/54, 386/65, 386/66, 704500-504, 369/3, 369/4, 463/35, 352/1, 352/11, 352/12, 352/22, 352/25, 352/37
• US Class Current: 700/94
• 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 19/16 Vocoder architecture
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 20/10 Digital recording or reproducing
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2020/10592 specifically adapted for recording or reproducing multichannel signals
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/10 Indexing; Addressing; Timing or synchronising; Measuring tape travel
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/105 of operating discs
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2368 Multiplexing of audio and video streams
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4305 Synchronising client clock from received content stream, e.g. locking decoder clock with encoder clock, extraction of the PCR packets arrangements for synchronising receiver with transmitter by comparing receiver clock with transmitter clock H04L7/0012; arrangements for synchronising receiver with transmitter wherein the receiver takes measures against momentary loss of synchronisation H04L7/0083
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/43072 of multiple content streams on the same device
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4341 Demultiplexing of audio and video streams
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 1/007 in which the audio signals are in digital form data reduction aspects thereof based on psychoacoustics G10L19/02

Abstract

This invention provides an audio reproducing apparatus which reproduces plural digital audio signals and synchronizes them with each other. The audio reproducing apparatus includes a synchronization setting unit 11 which synchronizes the plural audio signals by allocating, on a time axis, plural pieces of audio reproduction time information of the audio signals and in a manner which maintains a difference between reproduction times indicated by adjacent pieces of the audio reproduction time information of each of the audio signals, and an audio synthesis unit 6 which synthesizes the plural audio signals using the plural pieces of the audio reproduction time information allocated on the time axis.

Claims

1. An audio reproducing apparatus which reproduces an audio signal and outputs the reproduced audio signal, said audio reproducing apparatus comprising:

a synchronization unit operable to allocate, on a time axis, plural pieces of audio reproduction time information of a main audio signal and a sub-audio signal, the plural pieces of the audio reproduction time information of the main audio signal and sub-audio signal being respectively allocated in a manner which maintains a difference between reproduction times indicated by adjacent pieces of the audio reproduction time information of the main audio signal and sub-audio signal so as to synchronize the main audio signal and sub-audio signal; and

a synthesis unit operable to synthesize the main audio signal and sub-audio signal using the plural pieces of audio reproduction time information allocated on the time axis,

wherein a time when reproduction of the main audio signal is started is different from a time when reproduction of the sub-audio signal is started, and

the sub-audio signal is reproduced in accordance with a piece of the audio reproduction time information of the sub-audio signal in the case where the piece of the audio reproduction time information of the sub-audio signal is present, and the sub-audio signal is reproduced in accordance with a piece of the audio reproduction time information of the main audio signal in the case where a piece of the audio reproduction time information of the sub-audio signal is not present.

2. The audio reproducing apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the sub-audio signal is an audio signal which has plural reproduction sections.