Traditionally, speech coding and audio coding were separate worlds. Based on different technical approaches and different assumptions about the source signal, neither of the two coding schemes could efficiently represent both speech and music at low bitrates. This paper presents a unified speech and audio codec, which efficiently combines techniques from both worlds. This results in a codec that exhibits consistently high quality for speech, music and mixed audio content. The paper gives an overview of the codec architecture and presents results of formal listening tests comparing this new codec with HE-AAC(v2) and AMR-WB+. This new codec forms the basis of the reference model in the ongoing MPEG standardization activity for Unified Speech and Audio Coding.

Unified speech and audio coding scheme for high quality at low bitrates

Disclosed is a method of processing a signal, which includes receiving at least one of a first signal and a second signal, receiving mode information, and coding the at least one of the first signal and the second signal using at least one of a first coding scheme and a second coding scheme according to the mode information, wherein the mode information is information for indicating that a prescribed mode corresponds to which one of at least three modes.

method and an apparatus for processing a signal

Coding of speech signals at low bitrates, such as 16 kbps, has to rely on an efficient speech reproduction model to achieve reasonable speech quality. However, for audio signals not fitting to the model this approach generally fails. On the other hand, generic audio codecs, designed to handle any kind of audio signal, tend to show unsatisfactory results for speech signals, especially at low bitrates. To overcome this, a process was initiated by ISO/MPEG, aiming to standardize a new codec with consistent high quality for speech, music and mixed content over a broad range of bitrates. After a formal listening test evaluating several proposals MPEG has selected the best performing codec as the reference model for the standardization process. This paper describes this codec in detail and shows that the new reference model reaches the goal of consistent high quality for all signal types.

A Novel Scheme for Low Bitrate Unified Speech and Audio Coding – MPEG RM0

A multi-mode audio signal decoder for providing a decoded representation of an audio content on the basis of an encoded representation of the audio content comprises a spectral value determinator configured to obtain sets of decoded spectral coefficients for a plurality of portions of the audio content. The audio signal decoder also comprises a spectrum processor configured to apply a spectral shaping to a set of spectral coefficients, or to a pre-processed version thereof, in dependence on a set of linear-prediction-domain parameters for a portion of the audio content encoded in a linear-prediction mode, and to apply a spectral shaping to a set of decoded spectral coefficients, or a pre-processed version thereof, in dependence on a set of scale factor parameters for a portion of the audio content encoded in a frequency-domain mode. The audio signal decoder comprises a frequency-domain-to-time-domain converter configured to obtain a time-domain representation of the audio content on the basis of a spectrally-shaped set of decoded spectral coefficients for a portion of the audio content encoded in the linear-prediction mode, and to obtain a time domain representation of the audio content on the basis of a spectrally shaped set of decoded spectral coefficients for a portion of the audio content encoded in the frequency domain mode. An audio signal encoder is also described.

Multi-mode audio signal decoder, multi-mode audio signal encoder, methods and computer program using a linear-prediction-coding based noise shaping

The application relates to audio encoder and decoder systems. An embodiment of the encoder system comprises a downmix stage for generating a downmix signal and a residual signal based on a stereo signal. In addition, the encoder system comprises a parameter determining stage for determining parametric stereo parameters such as an inter-channel intensity difference and an inter-channel cross-correlation. Preferably, the parametric stereo parameters are time- and frequency-variant. Moreover, the encoder system comprises a transform stage. The transform stage generates a pseudo left/right stereo signal by performing a transform based on the downmix signal and the residual signal. The pseudo stereo signal is processed by a perceptual stereo encoder. For stereo encoding, left/right encoding or mid/side encoding is selectable. Preferably, the selection between left/right stereo encoding and mid/side stereo encoding is time- and frequency-variant.

Advanced stereo coding based on a combination of adaptively selectable left/right or mid/side stereo coding and of parametric stereo coding

This paper proposes a unified speech/audio codec by adopting a single channel harmonic separation module as a pre-processor. A modulation frequency analysis method is used for harmonic separation, and the separated components are first encoded by an appropriate codec, e.g. speech codec. The error between input and the encoded signal is re- encoded by another codec. Though any type of codec can be used for the purpose, we adopt two state-of-the-art international standards (AMR-WB and HE-AAC) to provide an interoperability option. The amount of allocated bits to each stage is controlled by a power ratio of separated harmonic components to input signal. Subjective listening tests verify the consistency of the proposed method in speech, music and mixed signal inputs.

Sang-Wook Shin

Papers

Designing a unified speech/audio codec by adopting a single channel harmonic source separation module