Audio encoder for encoding a multichannel signal and audio decoder for decoding an encoded audio signal

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10388287-B2
Application number	US-201715695668-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 5, 2017
Priority date	Mar 9, 2015
Publication date	Aug 20, 2019
Grant date	Aug 20, 2019

Abstract

Audio encoder for encoding a multichannel signal is shown. The audio encoder includes a downmixer for downmixing the multichannel signal to obtain a downmix signal, a linear prediction domain core encoder for encoding the downmix signal, wherein the downmix signal has a low band and a high band, wherein the linear prediction domain core encoder is configured to apply a bandwidth extension processing for parametrically encoding the high band, a filterbank for generating a spectral representation of the multichannel signal, and a joint multichannel encoder configured to process the spectral representation including the low band and the high band of the multichannel signal to generate multichannel information.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An audio encoder for encoding a multichannel signal, comprising:
a downmixer for downmixing the multichannel signal to acquire a downmix signal,
a linear prediction domain core encoder for encoding the downmix signal, wherein the downmix signal comprises a low band and a high band, wherein the linear prediction domain core encoder is configured to apply a bandwidth extension processing for parametrically encoding the high band;
a filterbank for generating a spectral representation of the multichannel signal; and
a joint multichannel encoder configured to process the spectral representation comprising the low band and the high band of the multichannel signal to generate multichannel information.

2. The audio encoder according to claim 1 ,
wherein the linear prediction domain core encoder further comprises a linear prediction domain decoder for decoding the encoded downmix signal to acquire an encoded and decoded downmix signal; and
wherein the audio encoder further comprises a multichannel residual coder for calculating an encoded multichannel residual signal using the encoded and decoded downmix signal, the multichannel residual signal representing an error between a decoded multichannel representation using the multichannel information and the multichannel signal before downmixing.

3. The audio encoder of claim 1 ,
wherein the linear prediction domain core encoder is configured to apply a bandwidth extension processing for parametrically encoding the high band,
wherein the linear prediction domain decoder is configured to acquire, as the encoded and decoded downmix signal, only a low band signal representing the low band of the downmix signal, and wherein the encoded multichannel residual signal comprises only a band corresponding to the low band of the multichannel signal before downmixing.

4. The audio encoder according to claim 1 , wherein the linear prediction domain core encoder comprises an ACELP processor, wherein the ACELP processor is configured to operate on a downsampled downmix signal and wherein a time domain bandwidth extension processor is configured to parametrically encode a band of a portion of the downmix signal removed from the ACELP input signal by a third downsampling.

5. The audio encoder according to claim 1 , wherein the linear prediction domain core encoder comprises a TCX processor wherein the TCX processor is configured to operate on the downmix signal not downsampled or downsampled by a degree smaller than the downsampling for the ACELP processor, the TCX processor comprising a first time-frequency converter, a first parameter generator for generating a parametric representation of a first set of bands and a first quantizer encoder for generating a set of quantized encoded spectral lines for a second set of bands.

6. The audio encoder according to claim 5 , wherein the time-frequency converter is different from the filterbank, wherein the filterbank comprises filter parameters optimized to generate a spectral representation of the multichannel signal, or wherein the time-frequency converter comprises filter parameters optimized to generate a parametric representation of a first set of bands.

7. The audio encoder according to claim 1 , wherein the multichannel encoder comprises a first frame generator and wherein the linear prediction domain core encoder comprises a second frame generator, wherein the first and the second frame generators are configured to form a frame from the multichannel signal, wherein the first and the second frame generators are configured to form a frame of a similar length.

8. The audio encoder according to claim 1 , the audio encoder further comprising:
a linear prediction domain encoder comprising the linear prediction domain core encoder and the multichannel encoder;
a frequency domain encoder; and
a controller for switching between the linear prediction domain encoder and the frequency domain encoder,
wherein the frequency domain encoder comprises a second joint multichannel encoder for encoding second multichannel information from the multichannel signal, wherein the second joint multichannel encoder is different from the first joint multichannel encoder, and
wherein the controller is configured such that a portion of the multichannel signal is represented either by an encoded frame of the linear prediction domain encoder or by an encoded frame of the frequency domain encoder.

9. The audio encoder according to claim 1 ,
wherein the linear prediction domain core encoder is configured to calculate the downmix signal as a parametric representation of a mid signal of an M/S multichannel audio signal;
wherein the multichannel residual coder is configured to calculate a side signal corresponding to the mid signal of the M/S multichannel audio signal, wherein the multichannel residual coder is configured to calculate a high band of the mid signal using simulating time domain bandwidth extension or wherein the multichannel residual coder is configured to predict the high band of the mid signal using finding a prediction information that minimizes a difference between a calculated side signal and a calculated full band mid signal from the previous frame.

10. An audio decoder for decoding an encoded audio signal comprising a core encoded signal, bandwidth extension parameters, and multichannel information, the audio decoder comprising:
a linear prediction domain core decoder for decoding the core encoded signal to generate a mono signal;
an analysis filterbank to convert the mono signal into a spectral representation;
a multichannel decoder for generating a first channel spectrum and a second channel spectrum from the spectral representation of the mono signal and the multichannel information; and
a synthesis filterbank processor for synthesis filtering the first channel spectrum to acquire a first channel signal and for synthesis filtering the second channel spectrum to acquire a second channel signal.

11. The audio decoder according to claim 10 , comprising:
wherein the linear prediction domain core decoder comprises a bandwidth extension processor for generating a high band portion from the bandwidth extension parameters and the lowband mono signal or the core encoded signal to acquire a decoded high band of the audio signal;
wherein the linear prediction domain core decoder further comprises a low band signal processor configured to decode the low band mono signal;
wherein the linear prediction domain core decoder further comprises a configured to calculate a full band mono signal using the decoded low band mono signal and the decoded high band of the audio signal.

12. The audio decoder of claim 10 , wherein the linear prediction domain decoder comprises:
an ACELP decoder, a low band synthesizer, an upsampler, a time domain bandwidth extension processor or a second combiner, wherein the second combiner is configured for combining an upsampled low band signal and a bandwidth-extended high band signal to acquire a full band ACELP decoded mono signal;
a TCX decoder and an intelligent gap filling processor to acquire a full band TCX decoded mono signal;
a full band synthesis processor for combining the full band ACELP decoded mono signal and the full band TCX decoded mono signal, or
wherein a cross-path is provided for initializing the low band synthesizer using information derived by a low band spectrum-time conversion from the TCX decoder and the IGF processor.

13. The audio decoder of claim 10 , further comprising:
a frequency domain decoder;
a second joint multichannel decoder for generating a second multichannel representation using an output of

Assignees

• Fraunhofer Ges Forschung

Inventors

• Disch Sascha
• Fuchs Guillaume
• Ravelli Emmanuel
• Neukam Christian
• Schmidt Konstantin
• Benndorf Conrad
• Niedermeier Andreas
• Schubert Benjamin
• Geiger Ralf

Classifications

• G10L19/008 Primary

  Multichannel audio signal coding or decoding using interchannel correlation to reduce redundancy, e.g. joint-stereo, intensity-coding or matrixing · CPC title

• G10L21/038

  using band spreading techniques · CPC title

• G10L19/13

  Residual excited linear prediction [RELP] · CPC title

• G10L19/04

  using predictive techniques · CPC title

• G10L19/02

  using spectral analysis, e.g. transform vocoders or subband vocoders · CPC title