Quantization and inverse quantization for audio

• US 8,255,234 B2
• Filed: 10/18/2011
• Issued: 08/28/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/04/2002
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Thumpudi, Naveen, Chen, Wei-Ge
• Primary Examiner(s): Rider, Justin
• Application Number:
  US13/276,163
• Publication Number:
  US 20120035941A1
• Time in Patent Office: 315 Days
• Field of Search: 704/503, 704/504
• US Class Current: 704/503
• 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 19/032 Quantisation or dequantisation of spectral components

Abstract

An audio encoder and decoder use architectures and techniques that improve the efficiency of quantization (e.g., weighting) and inverse quantization (e.g., inverse weighting) in audio coding and decoding. The described strategies include various techniques and tools, which can be used in combination or independently. For example, an audio encoder quantizes audio data in multiple channels, applying multiple channel-specific quantizer step modifiers, which give the encoder more control over balancing reconstruction quality between channels. The encoder also applies multiple quantization matrices and varies the resolution of the quantization matrices, which allows the encoder to use more resolution if overall quality is good and use less resolution if overall quality is poor. Finally, the encoder compresses one or more quantization matrices using temporal prediction to reduce the bitrate associated with the quantization matrices. An audio decoder performs corresponding inverse processing and decoding.

Claims

1. A computing device that implements an audio decoder, the computing device comprising:

one or more processors;

memory; and

one or more storage media storing instructions for causing the computing device to perform a method of decoding audio comprising;

receiving encoded audio information, the encoded audio information including information for plural quantization matrices;

decompressing at least one of the plural quantization matrices using temporal prediction; and

decoding the encoded audio information, including applying the plural quantization matrices in inverse quantization, wherein the resolution of the plural quantization matrices varies during the decoding.

2. The computing device of claim 1 wherein the resolution varies due to changing of quantization of information for the plural quantization matrices.

3. The computing device of claim 1 wherein the resolution varies due to changing of quantization of elements of the plural quantization matrices.

4. The computing device of claim 1 wherein the resolution is set on a channel-by-channel basis.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the encoded audio information is in more than two channels.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the temporal prediction is from an anchor matrix to the at least one of the plural quantization matrices within a channel.

7. A computing device that implements an audio decoder, the computing device comprising:

one or more processors;

memory; and

one or more storage media storing instructions for causing the computing device to perform a method of decoding audio comprising;

receiving encoded audio information for audio, the encoded audio information including information for plural weight factors, wherein each of the plural weight factors indicates a weight value for one or more frequency bands for a time window of the audio; and

decoding the audio using the encoded audio information, including;

selecting a weight factor resolution from plural available weight factor resolutions; and

reconstructing the plural weight factors using the selected weight factor resolution and, for at least one of the plural weight factors, temporal prediction.

8. The computing device of claim 7 wherein:

the encoded audio information includes information indicating the selected weight factor resolution;

the encoded audio information further includes entropy coded differences for at least some of the plural weight factors; and

the reconstructing the plural weight factors includes inverse quantizing the plural weight factors according to the selected weight factor resolution.

9. The computing device of claim 7 wherein the plural weight factors include a first set of weight factors for a previous time window and a second set of weight factors for a current time window, and wherein the reconstructing using temporal prediction includes, for a current weight factor in the second set of weight factors:

determining a corresponding weight factor in the first set of weight factors;

entropy decoding a difference between the current weight factor and the corresponding weight factor; and

combining the corresponding weight factor with the difference between the current weight factor and the corresponding weight factor.

10. The computing device of claim 9 wherein the first set of weight factors and the second set of weight factors have the same number of weight factors, and wherein the determining the corresponding weight factor comprises determining which weight factor in the first set of weight factors is for the same one or more frequency bands as the current weight factor in the second set of weight factors.

11. The computing device of claim 9 wherein the first set of weight factors and the second set of weight factors have different numbers of weight factors, and wherein the determining the corresponding weight factor comprises:

determining one or more current frequency bands for the current weight factor;

mapping the one or more current frequency bands to a corresponding frequency band for the first set of weight factors; and

assigning the corresponding weight factor as the weight factor in the first set of weight factors that is for the corresponding frequency band.

12. The computing device of claim 9 wherein the first set of weight factors is decoded without using temporal prediction, wherein the second set of weight factors is decoded using temporal prediction relative to the first set of weight factors, and wherein a third set of weight factors for a later time window after the current time window is also decoded using temporal prediction relative to the first set of weight factors.

13. The computing device of claim 7 wherein the computing device further includes a wireless communication connection, and wherein the plural available weight factor resolutions include one or more of 1 dB, 2 dB, 3 dB and 4 dB.

14. In a computing device that implements an audio encoder, a computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, at the computing device that implements the audio encoder, audio; and

with the computing device that implements the audio encoder, encoding the audio to produce encoded audio information, the encoded audio information including information for plural weight factors, wherein each of the plural weight factors indicates a weight value for one or more frequency bands for a time window of the audio, and wherein the encoding the audio includes;

selecting a weight factor resolution from plural available weight factor resolutions; and

encoding the plural weight factors using the selected weight factor resolution and, for at least one of the plural weight factors, temporal prediction.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein the encoding the audio further includes generating the plural weight factors and quantizing the plural weight factors according to the selected weight factor resolution, and wherein the encoded audio information includes information indicating the selected weight factor resolution.

16. The method of claim 14 wherein the plural weight factors include a first set of weight factors for a previous time window and a second set of weight factors for a current time window, and wherein the encoding using temporal prediction includes, for a current weight factor in the second set of weight factors:

determining a corresponding weight factor in the first set of weight factors;

determining a difference between the current weight factor and the corresponding weight factor; and

entropy coding the difference between the current weight factor and the corresponding weight factor.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the first set of weight factors and the second set of weight factors have the same number of weight factors, and wherein the determining the corresponding weight factor comprises determining which weight factor in the first set of weight factors is for the same one or more frequency bands as the current weight factor in the second set of weight factors.

18. The method of claim 16 wherein the first set of weight factors and the second set of weight factors have different numbers of weight factors, and wherein the determining the corresponding weight factor comprises:

determining one or more current frequency bands for the current weight factor;

mapping the one or more current frequency bands to a corresponding frequency band for the first set of weight factors; and

assigning the corresponding weight factor as the weight factor in the first set of weight factors that is for the corresponding frequency band.

19. The method of claim 16 wherein the first set of weight factors is encoded without using temporal prediction, wherein the second set of weight factors is encoded using temporal prediction relative to the first set of weight factors, and wherein a third set of weight factors for a later time window after the current time window is also encoded using temporal prediction relative to the first set of weight factors.

20. The method of claim 14 wherein the plural available weight factor resolutions include one or more of 1 dB, 2 dB, 3 dB and 4 dB.