An aspect of the present invention relates to a method for low-frequency emphasizing the spectrum of a sound signal transformed in a frequency domain and comprising transform coefficients grouped in a number of blocks, in which a maximum energy for one block is calculated and a position index of the block with maximum energy is determined, a factor is calculated for each block having a position index smaller than the position index of the block with maximum energy, and for each block a gain is determined from the factor and is applied to the transform coefficients of the block.

Methods and devices for low-frequency emphasis during audio compression based on acelp/tcx

An encoding device (200) includes an MDCT unit (202) that transforms an input signal in a time domain into a frequency spectrum including a lower frequency spectrum, a BWE encoding unit (204) that generates extension data which specifies a higher frequency spectrum at a higher frequency than the lower frequency spectrum, and an encoded data stream generating unit (205) that encodes to output the lower frequency spectrum obtained by the MDCT unit (202) and the extension data obtained by the BWE encoding unit (204). The BWE encoding unit (204) generates as the extension data (i) a first parameter which specifies a lower subband which is to be copied as the higher frequency spectrum from among a plurality of the lower subbands which form the lower frequency spectrum obtained by the MDCT unit (202) and (ii) a second parameter which specifies a gain of the lower subband after being copied.

Encoding device and decoding device

The present invention teaches a new audio coding system that can code both general audio and speech signals well at low bit rates. A proposed audio coding system comprises linear prediction unit for filtering an input signal based on an adaptive filter; a transformation unit for transforming a frame of the filtered input signal into a transform domain; and a quantization unit for quantizing the transform domain signal. The quantization unit decides, based on input signal characteristics, to encode the transform domain signal with a model-based quantizer or a non-model-based quantizer. Preferably, the decision is based on the frame size applied by the transformation unit.

Audio encoder and decoder

The invention concerns a method and apparatus for performing packet loss or Frame Erasure Concealment (FEC) for a speech coder that does not have a built-in or standard FEC process. A receiver with a decoder receives encoded frames of compressed speech information transmitted from an encoder. A lost frame detector at the receiver determines if an encoded frame has been lost or corrupted in transmission, or erased. If the encoded frame is not erased, the encoded frame is decoded by a decoder and a temporary memory is updated with the decoder's output. A predetermined delay period is applied and the audio frame is then output. If the lost frame detector determines that the encoded frame is erased, a FEC module applies a frame concealment process to the signal. The FEC processing produces natural sounding synthetic speech for the erased frames.

Method and apparatus for performing packet loss or frame erasure concealment

The present invention relates to a method and device for improving concealment of frame erasure caused by frames of an encoded sound signal erased during transmission from an encoder (106) to a decoder (110), and for accelerating recovery of the decoder after non erased frames of the encoded sound signal have been received. For that purpose, concealment/recovery parameters are determined in the encoder or decoder. When determined in the encoder (106), the concealment/recovery parameters are transmitted to the decoder (110). In the decoder, erasure frame concealment and decoder recovery is conducted in response to the concealment/recovery parameters. The concealment/recovery parameters may be selected from the group consisting of: a signal classification parameter, an energy information parameter and a phase information parameter. The determination of the concealment/recovery parameters comprises classifying the successive frames of the encoded sound signal as unvoiced, unvoiced transition, voiced transition, voiced, or onset, and this classification is determined on the basis of at least a part of the following parameters: a normalized correlation parameter, a spectral tilt parameter, a signal-to-noise ratio parameter, a pitch stability parameter, a relative frame energy parameter, and a zero crossing parameter.

Method and device for efficient frame erasure concealment in linear predictive based speech codecs

A system and method for processing of audio and speech signals is disclosed, which provide compatibility over a range of communication devices operating at different sampling frequencies and/or bit rates. The analyzer of the system divides the input signal in different portions, at least one of which carries information sufficient to provide intelligible reconstruction of the input signal. The analyzer also encodes separate information about other portions of the signal in an embedded manner, so that a smooth transition can be achieved from low bit-rate to high bit-rate applications. Accordingly, communication devices operating at different sampling rates and/or bit-rates can extract corresponding information from the output bit stream of the analyzer. In the present invention embedded information generally relates to separate parameters of the input signal, or to additional resolution in the transmission of original signal parameters. Non-linear techniques for enhancing the overall performance of the system are also disclosed. Also disclosed is a novel method of improving the quantization of signal parameters. In a specific embodiment the input signal is processed in two or more modes dependent on the state of the signal in a frame. When the signal is determined to be in a transition state, the encoder provides phase information about N sinusoids, which the decoder end uses to improve the quality of the output signal at low bit rates.

Scalable and embedded codec for speech and audio signals

High-quality, low-complexity and low-delay scalable and embedded system and method are disclosed for coding speech and general audio signals. The invention is particularly suitable in Internet Protocol (IP)-based multimedia communications. Adaptive transform coding, such as a Modified Discrete Cosine Transform, is used, with multiple small-size transforms in a given signal frame to reduce the coding delay and computational complexity. In a preferred embodiment, for a chosen sampling rate of the input signal, one or more output sampling rates may be decoded with varying degrees of complexity. Multiple sampling rates and bit rates are supported due to the scalable and embedded coding approach underlying the present invention. Further, a novel adaptive frame loss concealment approach is used to reduce the distortion caused by packet loss in communications using IP networks.

Low-complexity, low-delay, scalable and embedded speech and audio coding with adaptive frame loss concealment

A speech coding system robust to frame erasure (or packet loss) is described. Illustrative embodiments are directed to a modified version of CCITT standard G.728. In the event of frame erasure, vectors of an excitation signal are synthesized based on previously stored excitation signal vectors generated during non-erased frames. This synthesis differs for voiced and non-voiced speech. During erased frames, linear prediction filter coefficients are synthesized as a weighted extrapolation of a set of linear prediction filter coefficients determined during non-erased frames. The weighting factor is a number less than 1. This weighting accomplishes a bandwidth-expansion of peaks in the frequency response of a linear predictive filter. Computational complexity during erased frames is reduced through the elimination of certain computations needed during non-erased frames only. This reduction in computational complexity offsets additional computation required for excitation signal synthesis and linear prediction filter coefficient generation during erased frames.

Linear Prediction Coefficient Generation During Frame Erasure or Packet Loss

A system and method are provided for processing audio and speech signals using a pitch and voicing dependent spectral estimation algorithm (voicing algorithm) to accurately represent voiced speech, unvoiced speech, and mixed speech in the presence of background noise, and background noise with a single model. The present invention also modifies the synthesis model based on an estimate of the current input signal to improve the perceptual quality of the speech and background noise under a variety of input conditions. The present invention also improves the voicing dependent spectral estimation algorithm robustness by introducing the use of a Multi-Layer Neural Network in the estimation process. The voicing dependent spectral estimation algorithm provides an accurate and robust estimate of the voicing probability under a variety of background noise conditions. This is essential to providing high quality intelligible speech in the presence of background noise.

Parametric speech codec for representing synthetic speech in the presence of background noise

This paper presents a high-fidelity speech and audio codec operating at a sampling rate of 32 kHz and a bit rate of 64 kbit/s. Designed primarily for real-time speech communication systems with high port densities, this MDCT-based transform codec has a very low coding delay (8 ms frame size) and low codec complexity (less than 10 MIPS on a 16-bit fixed-point DSP). The codec achieves essentially transparent quality for speech, and very close to transparent quality for music. A novel frame erasure concealment algorithm makes this codec robust to frame erasures for both speech and music. Another novel feature allows the decoder to decode the bit stream directly into a 16 kHz or 8 kHz sampled signal, without the need to decode a 32 kHz signal first and then down-sample it to the target sampling rate. Other novel features include some speed-memory trade-off techniques to reduce the computational complexity.

Juin-Hwey Chen

Papers

Scalable and embedded codec for speech and audio signals

Low-complexity, low-delay, scalable and embedded speech and audio coding with adaptive frame loss concealment

Linear Prediction Coefficient Generation During Frame Erasure or Packet Loss

Parametric speech codec for representing synthetic speech in the presence of background noise

A high-fidelity speech and audio codec with low delay and low complexity