Patent ID: 7865369

Claim:
A method of processing a signal using pilot based coding (PBC), the method comprising: obtaining, by an audio coding apparatus, first frequency grouping information identifying a number of parameter bands within a frame, and second frequency grouping information identifying a group of data bands from the number of parameter bands; obtaining, by the audio coding apparatus, a pilot reference value and one or more pilot difference values associated with the identified group of data bands; and obtaining, by the audio coding apparatus, data elements of the identified group of data bands, using the pilot reference value and the pilot difference values, wherein: the pilot reference value is dependent on the data elements of the identified group of data bands, and is not dependent on data elements of an other frame, a quantity of the pilot difference values is equal to a quantity of the data elements of the identified group of data bands, the pilot reference value is a single value which applies to all of the data elements of the identified group of data bands, and each pilot difference value corresponds to each data element of the identified group of data bands.