Patent ID: 7840410

Claim:
A method for processing blocks of audio information arranged in frames, each block having content representing a respective time interval of audio information, wherein the method comprises: (a) receiving an input signal conveying the blocks of audio information; (b) obtaining two or more measures of quality such that: (1) each set in a plurality of sets of groups of the blocks in a respective frame has an associated measure of quality, (2) each group has one or more blocks, (3) each set of groups includes all blocks in the respective frame and no block is included in more than one group in each set, and (4) the measure of quality represents excellence in results obtainable by processing each block in a respective group according to one or more control parameters associated with the respective group; (c) analyzing the measures of quality to identify a selected set of groups having a minimum number of groups such that a measure of processing performance obtained at least in part from the associated measure of quality is higher than a threshold; and (d) processing each group of blocks in the selected set of groups according to the associated one or more control parameters to generate an output signal representing contents of the input signal and representing the associated control parameters for each group in the selected set.