Patent ID: 6016473
Filing Date: 2000-01-18
Classification: G10L,H04B,H04S

Abstract:
A low bit-rate spatial coding system for encoding a plurality of audio streams representing a soundfield into an encoded signal and decoding said encoded signal, said system including an encoder and a decoder, said encoder comprisingmeans for generating a plurality of subband signals in response to said plurality of audio streams, each subband signal representing a respective frequency subband of a respective one of said audio streams,means for generating a composite signal representing the combination of subband signals in respective frequency subbands,means for generating a steering control signal for said composite signal indicating the principal direction of said soundfield in respective subbands,means for generating encoded information by allocating bits to said composite signal and said steering control signal, andmeans for assembling said encoded information into an encoded signal, andsaid decoder comprisingmeans for deriving the composite signal and steering control signal from said encoded signal,means for deriving subband signals in response to said composite signal and said steering control signal,means for supplying reproduction information describing the number of output channels of said decoder and the location or virtual location of sound transducers connected to the respective output channels, wherein there are three or more output channels, andmeans for generating an audio stream in no more than two output channels at any instant in response to said subband signals and reproduction information.