Patent ID: 7702407

Claim:
A method for decoding an encoded audio signal performed by an audio decoding apparatus, comprising: receiving, in the audio decoding apparatus, a downmix signal, fixed channel configuration information indicating a predetermined tree configuration and arbitrary channel configuration information including a type identifier comprising an arbitrary tree configuration, wherein the type identifier includes one of a division identifier and a non-division identifier, the division identifier indicating a channel division at a node of a layer and the non-division identifier indicating no channel division at a node of a layer; generating, in the audio decoding apparatus, fixed output channels using the fixed channel configuration information and the downmix signal; and generating, in the audio decoding apparatus, at least one arbitrary output channel using the arbitrary channel configuration information and the fixed output channels such that each arbitrary channel is generated from only one fixed channel comprising: setting an initial value of a number of nodes, an initial value of a number of arbitrary output channels, and an initial value of a number of channel conversion modules; increasing the number of nodes and the number of channel conversion modules by a predetermined number of units if the identifier is the division identifier; and if the identifier is the non-division identifier, increasing the number of arbitrary output channels by a predetermined number of units and reducing the number of the nodes by predetermined number of units; wherein a number of the fixed output channels is greater than a number of channels of the downmix signal, and wherein a number of output channels of the decoded audio signal including the at least one arbitrary output channel is greater than the number of the fixed output channels.