The present invention relates to coding of audio signals, and in particular to high frequency reconstruction methods including a frequency domain harmonic transposer. A system and method for generating a high frequency component of a signal from a low frequency component of the signal is described. The system comprises an analysis filter bank (501) comprising an analysis transformation unit (601) having a frequency resolution of Δf; and an analysis window (611) having a duration of D.sub.A; the analysis filter bank (501) being configured to provide a set of analysis subband signals from the low frequency component of the signal; a nonlinear processing unit (502, 650) configured to determine a set of synthesis subband signals based on a portion of the set of analysis subband signals, wherein the portion of the set of analysis subband signals is phase shifted by a transposition order T; and a synthesis filter bank (504) comprising a synthesis transformation unit (602) having a frequency resolution of QΔf; and a synthesis window (612) having a duration of D.sub.S; the synthesis filter bank (504) being configured to generate the high frequency component of the signal from the set of synthesis subband signals; wherein Q is a frequency resolution factor with Q≧1 and smaller than the transposition order T; and wherein the value of the product of the frequency resolution Δf and the duration D.sub.A of the analysis filter bank is selected based on the frequency resolution factor Q.

An encoding method includes dividing a to-be-encoded time-domain signal into a low band signal and a high band signal, performing encoding on the low band signal to obtain a low frequency encoding parameter, performing encoding on the high band signal to obtain a high frequency encoding parameter, obtaining a synthesized high band signal, performing short-time post-filtering processing on the synthesized high band signal to obtain a short-time filtering signal, and calculating a high frequency gain based on the high band signal and the short-time filtering signal.

Innovations in phase quantization during speech encoding and phase reconstruction during speech decoding are described. For example, to encode a set of phase values, a speech encoder omits higher-frequency phase values and/or represents at least some of the phase values as a weighted sum of basis functions. Or, as another example, to decode a set of phase values, a speech decoder reconstructs at least some of the phase values using a weighted sum of basis functions and/or reconstructs lower-frequency phase values then uses at least some of the lower-frequency phase values to synthesize higher-frequency phase values. In many cases, the innovations improve the performance of a speech codec in low bitrate scenarios, even when encoded data is delivered over a network that suffers from insufficient bandwidth or transmission quality problems.

An audio encoder for providing an output signal using an input audio signal includes a patch generator, a comparator and an output interface. The patch generator generates at least one bandwidth extension high-frequency signal, wherein a bandwidth extension high-frequency signal includes a high-frequency band. The high-frequency band of the bandwidth extension high-frequency signal is based on a low frequency band of the input audio signal. A comparator calculates a plurality of comparison parameters. A comparison parameter is calculated based on a comparison of the input audio signal and a generated bandwidth extension high-frequency signal. Each comparison parameter of the plurality of comparison parameters is calculated based on a different offset frequency between the input audio signal and a generated bandwidth extension high-frequency signal. Further, the comparator determines a comparison parameter from the plurality of comparison parameters, wherein the determined comparison parameter fulfils a predefined criterion.

A decoder for generating an audio output signal having one or more audio output channels is provided, having a receiving interface for receiving an audio input signal having a plurality of audio object signals, for receiving loudness information on the audio object signals, and for receiving rendering information indicating whether one or more of the audio object signals shall be amplified or attenuated, further having a signal processor for generating the one or more audio output channels of the audio output signal, configured to determine a loudness compensation value depending on the loudness information and depending on the rendering information, and configured to generate the one or more audio output channels of the audio output signal from the audio input signal depending on the rendering information and depending on the loudness compensation value. One or more by-pass audio object signals are employed for generating the audio output signal. Moreover, an encoder is provided.

An apparatus and method are disclosed for processing an audio signal. The apparatus includes an input interface, a digital filterbank having an analysis part and a synthesis part, a first phase shifter, a spectral envelope adjuster, a second phase shifter, and an output interface. The first phase shifter and the second phase shifter reduce a complexity of the digital filterbank, which includes both analysis and synthesis filters that are complex-exponential modulated versions of a prototype filter.

An audio signal encoding and decoding method, an audio signal encoding and decoding apparatus, a transmitter, a receiver, and a communications system, which can improve encoding and/or decoding performance. The audio signal encoding method includes dividing a to-be-encoded time domain signal into a low band signal and a high band signal; encoding the low band signal to obtain a low frequency encoding parameter; calculating a voiced degree factor, and predicting a high band excitation signal; weighting the high band excitation signal and random noise using the voiced degree factor, so as to obtain a synthesized excitation signal; and obtaining a high frequency encoding parameter based on the synthesized excitation signal and the high band signal. Technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention can improve an encoding or decoding effect.

An apparatus for selecting one of a first encoding algorithm and a second encoding algorithm includes a filter configured to receive the audio signal, to reduce the amplitude of harmonics in the audio signal and to output a filtered version of the audio signal. First and second estimators are provided for estimating first and second quality measures in the form of SNRs of segmented SNRs associated with the first and second encoding algorithms without actually encoding and decoding the portion of the audio signal using the first and second encoding algorithms. A controller is provided for selecting the first encoding algorithm or the second encoding algorithm based on a comparison between the first quality measure and the second quality measure.

The present invention relates to audio coding systems which make use of a harmonic transposition method for high frequency reconstruction (HFR). A system and a method for generating a high frequency component of a signal from a low frequency component of the signal is described. The system comprises an analysis filter bank providing a plurality of analysis subband signals of the low frequency component of the signal. It also comprises a non-linear processing unit to generate a synthesis subband signal with a synthesis frequency by modifying the phase of a first and a second of the plurality of analysis subband signals and by combining the phase-modified analysis subband signals. Finally, it comprises a synthesis filter bank for generating the high frequency component of the signal from the synthesis subband signal.

A coding apparatus normalizes a low-frequency spectrum included in each of sub-bands obtained from dividing a low band part, using a largest amplitude value among the low-frequency spectrum included in each sub-band, obtains a normalized low-frequency spectrum by decoding the first encoded data, and calculates a correlation between each divided band of a high-frequency spectrum and a plurality of candidate bands of the normalized low-frequency spectrum. The best bands of a plurality of candidate bands are identified, each candidate band having a starting frequency position with non-zero amplitude in the normalized low-frequency spectrum, the high-frequency spectrum being in a high band part of the input audio signal that is higher than the predetermined frequency, and the high-frequency spectrum is encoded using lag information identifying the best band for transmitting the lag information to a decoder.