Patent ID: 7680654

Claim:
A method for segmenting audio data comprising: dividing, using a computer, audio data into audio clips of a predetermined length; audio data input means for supplying audio data; audio data clipping means for dividing the audio data supplied by the audio data input means into audio clips of a predetermined length; class discrimination means for discriminating the audio clips supplied by the audio data clipping means into predetermined audio classes, the audio classes identifying a kind of audio data included in the respective audio clip; and segmenting means for segmenting the audio data into audio meta patterns based on a sequence of audio classes of consecutive audio clips, each meta pattern being allocated to a predetermined type of contents of the audio data, wherein the audio data segmentation apparatus further comprises: a program database comprising program data units to identify a certain kind of program, a plurality of respective audio meta patterns being allocated to each program data unit; an audio class probability database comprising probability values for each audio class with respect to a certain number of preceding audio classes for a sequence of consecutive audio clips; and an audio meta pattern probability database comprising probability values for each audio meta pattern with respect to a certain number of preceding audio meta patterns for a sequence of audio classes, wherein the segmenting means segments the audio data into corresponding audio meta patterns on the basis of the program data units of the program database, using the audio class probability database and the audio meta pattern probability database.