Patent ID: 8719040

Claim:
A signal processing apparatus comprising a processor for implementing: a decoder that receives a compressed audio stream encoded by a predetermined codec and decodes the compressed audio stream; a signal processing unit that applies predetermined signal processing to an audio stream obtained by decoding the compressed audio stream with the decoder; a first acquisition unit that acquires at least one of information described in a header of the compressed audio stream and management information for contents including the compressed audio stream; a second acquisition unit that acquires information concerning an external apparatus that has a decoder; a setting unit that discriminates, on the basis of the information acquired by the first acquisition unit, a type of the codec used for the encoding of the compressed audio stream and sets a codec used for encoding of the audio stream subjected to the signal processing by the signal processing unit based on the information acquired by the first acquisition unit and the information acquired by the second acquisition unit; and an encoder that encodes, in accordance with the setting by the setting unit, the audio stream subjected to the signal processing by the signal processing unit and outputs the audio stream to the external apparatus, wherein when the encoder is applicable to encode in a given codec that is one of (i) the same type as the codec used for the encoding of the compressed audio stream, (ii) compatible with the codec used for the encoding of the compressed audio stream, and (iii) alternative to the codec used for the encoding of the compressed audio stream, and the decoder of the external apparatus is applicable to decode in the given codec, the encoder encodes the audio stream subjected to the signal processing using the given codec, and when the encoder is not applicable to encode in a given codec that is any of (i) the same type as the codec used for the encoding of the compressed audio stream, (ii) compatible with the codec used for the encoding of the compressed audio stream, and (iii) alternative to the codec used for the encoding of the compressed audio stream, the encoder does not encode the audio stream subjected to the signal processing.