Patent ID: 8271292

Claim:
A signal bandwidth expanding apparatus configured to expand a bandwidth of an input signal, the apparatus comprising: a time acquiring module configured to acquire time information; a priority holding module configured to hold priority information of respective processes for each bandwidth to be expanded, the processes comprised in a process of bandwidth expansion; a controller configured to: sequentially perform the processes in descending order of priority using the priority information held by the priority holding module, calculate a time taken for the process using the time acquiring module when the process is ended, and control whether or not a next process having a secondary priority is performed according to the time taken for the process; and a frequency balance correcting module configured to control a power balance between an existing bandwidth and an expanded bandwidth that is expanded in accordance with a difference between a spectral centroid of a signal expanded by the process performed by the controller and a spectral centroid of a signal before a bandwidth is expanded, wherein the frequency balance correcting module is configured to perform the control so as to suppress a power of the expanded bandwidth when the spectral centroid of the signal is moved toward the expanded bandwidth by an amount equal to or larger than a predetermined threshold value by the process performed by the controller.