Patent ID: 8204756

Claim:
A method of decoding an audio signal, comprising: receiving a downmix signal, object-based side information and control information, the downmix signal being obtained by downmixing at least one object signal and the control information controlling for position or level of the object signal being included in the downmix signal; extracting metadata indicating description of object signal from a header of the object-based side information; generating parameter information and spatial parameter information by using the control information and the object-based side information, the parameter information being used to preprocess the downmix signal and the spatial parameter information being used to generate a multi-channel audio signal; preprocessing position or level of object signal being included in the downmix signal by applying the parameter information to the downmix signal; and generating a multi-channel audio signal by upmixing the preprocessed downmix signal based on the spatial parameter information, wherein the metadata uses text format.