Patent ID: 7962332

Claim:
A method of decoding an audio signal with a decoder, comprising: receiving, with the decoder, an audio data frame having at least first and second channels, the first and second channels having been subdivided into blocks according to a subdivision hierarchy, the first and second channels having been independently subdivided into blocks if the first and second channels are not correlated with each other, and the first and second channels having been synchronously subdivided into blocks such that the lengths of the blocks into which the second channel is subdivided correspond to the lengths of the blocks into which the first channel is subdivided if the first and second channels are correlated with each other and difference coding is used; and obtaining, with the decoder, first subdivision information indicating a number of levels in the subdivision hierarchy; obtaining, with the decoder, second subdivision information indicating a subdivision of the first and second channels into the blocks; and decoding, with the decoder, the first and second channels based on the first and second subdivision information, wherein the subdivided blocks of the first and second channels are not interleaved if the first and second channels are independently subdivided, wherein the first subdivision information indicates whether the subdivision hierarchy includes one of up to three levels, four levels, or five levels; if the first subdivision information is 01, the first subdivision information indicates the subdivision hierarchy includes up to three levels; if the first subdivision information is 10, the first subdivision information indicates the subdivision hierarchy includes four levels; if the first subdivision information is 11, the first subdivision information indicates the subdivision hierarchy includes five levels.