Audio coding apparatus, audio decoding apparatus, audio coding method and audio decoding method

Abstract

An audio coding apparatus comprises a frequency converter which performs frequency conversion on an audio signal to obtain frequency conversion coefficients, an importance calculator which calculates importance levels of frequency components corresponding to the frequency conversion coefficients obtained by the frequency converter, a coder which performs entropy coding of the frequency conversion coefficients to generate codes of the frequency conversion coefficients, and a comparing unit which compares an amount of the codes generated by the coder with a preset target code amount, wherein the coder performs the entropy coding in order of the importance levels until the comparing unit determines that the amount of the codes generated by the coder reaches the target code amount.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of the specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention, and together with the general description given above and the detailed description of the embodiments given below, serve to explain the principles of the invention in which:

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram showing the electric configuration of an audio coding apparatus 100;

FIG. 2 is a schematic block diagram showing the electric configuration of an audio decoding apparatus 200;

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of band division in a frequency domain;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of audio coding processing performed by the audio coding apparatus 100;

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of entropy coding processing performed by the audio coding apparatus 100;

FIG. 6 is a table showing the relation between frequency conversion coefficients and energy for each frequency component;

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of audio decoding processing performed by the audio decoding apparatus 200;

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of encoding processing according to a first modification;

FIG. 9 is a table showing the relation among the frequency conversion coefficients, the energy, and a flag for each frequency component; and

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of encoding processing according to a second modification.

Claims

1. An audio coding apparatus comprising: a frequency converter which performs frequency conversion on an audio signal to obtain frequency conversion coefficients;an importance calculator which calculates importance levels of frequency components corresponding to the frequency conversion coefficients obtained by the frequency converter;a coder which performs entropy coding of the frequency conversion coefficients to generate codes of the frequency conversion coefficients; anda first comparing unit which compares an amount of the codes generated by the coder with a preset target code amount, whereinthe coder performs the entropy coding in order of the importance levels until the first comparing unit determines that the amount of the codes generated by the coder reaches the target code amount.

2. The audio coding apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the coder performs entropy coding in order of frequencies on the frequency conversion coefficients which are coded by the entropy coding in order of the importance levels.

3. The audio coding apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising a second comparing unit which compares an amount of the codes generated by the entropy coding performed in order of the frequencies with the target code amount,when the second comparing unit determines that the amount of the codes generated by the entropy coding performed in order of the frequencies exceeds the target code amount, the coder eliminates a frequency conversion coefficient corresponding to a predetermined frequency component from the generated codes and the coder performs entropy coding on remaining frequency conversion coefficients.

4. The audio coding apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the entropy coding includes a range coding.

5. The audio coding apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: a frame dividing unit which divides an input audio signal into frames having constant length;an amplitude adjuster which adjusts amplitude of the audio signal based on a maximum amplitude contained in a frame of the audio signal and outputs the adjusted audio signal to the frequency converter;a band dividing unit which divides a frequency domain of the frequency conversion coefficients obtained by the frequency converter into bands based on a characteristic of human hearing;a detection unit which detects a maximum absolute value of the frequency conversion coefficients in a band divided by the band dividing unit,a shift-number calculator which calculates a number of bits to be shifted in such a manner that the maximum absolute value detected by the detection unit is controlled not to become larger than a predetermined quantization bit rate; anda shifting unit which shifts the frequency conversion coefficients in the band by the number of bits calculated by the shift-number calculator, whereinthe coder performs entropy coding on the frequency conversion coefficients shifted by the shifting unit.

6. The audio coding apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the frequency conversion includes a modified discrete cosine transform.

7. An audio coding method comprising: performing frequency conversion on an audio signal to obtain frequency conversion coefficients;calculating importance levels of frequency components corresponding to the frequency conversion coefficients obtained by the frequency conversion;performing entropy coding of the frequency conversion coefficients to generate codes of the frequency conversion coefficients; andcomparing an amount of the codes generated by the entropy coding with a preset target code amount, whereinthe entropy coding is performed in order of the importance levels until it is determined that the amount of the codes generated by the entropy coding reaches the target code amount.

8. The audio coding method according to claim 7, wherein the entropy coding is performed in order of frequencies on the frequency conversion coefficients which are coded by the entropy coding in order of the importance levels.

9. The audio coding method according to claim 8, further comprising comparing an amount of the codes generated by the entropy coding performed in order of the frequencies with the target code amount,when it is determined that the amount of the codes generated by the entropy coding performed in order of the frequencies exceeds the target code amount, a frequency conversion coefficient corresponding to a predetermined frequency component is eliminated from the generated codes and the entropy coding is performed on remaining frequency conversion coefficients.

10. The audio coding method according to claim 7, wherein the entropy coding includes a range coding.

11. The audio coding method according to claim 7, further comprising: dividing an input audio signal into frames having constant length;adjusting amplitude of the audio signal based on a maximum amplitude contained in a frame of the audio signal and outputting the adjusted audio signal to the frequency converter;dividing a frequency domain of the frequency conversion coefficients into bands based on a characteristic of human hearing;detecting a maximum absolute value of the frequency conversion coefficients in the divided band,calculating a number of bits to be shifted in such a manner that the detected maximum absolute value is controlled not to become larger than a predetermined quantization bit rate; andshifting the frequency conversion coefficients in the band by the number of bits to be shifted, whereinthe entropy coding is performed on the shifted frequency conversion coefficients.

12. The audio coding apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the frequency conversion includes a modified discrete cosine transform.

13. An audio decoding apparatus comprising: a decoder which decodes frequency conversion coefficients of an audio signal coded by entropy coding, wherein the entropy coding is performed in order of frequencies on frequency conversion coefficients generated by frequency conversion on the audio signal until an amount of generated codes reaches a preset target code amount; andan frequency inverse-converter which performs inverse frequency conversion on the frequency conversion coefficients decoded by the decoder.

14. The audio decoding apparatus according to claim 13, wherein the decoder substitutes a predetermined value for a deficient frequency conversion coefficient when a number of the frequency conversion coefficients decoded by the decoder is less than a number of the frequency conversion coefficients generated by the frequency conversion.

15. An audio decoding method comprising: decoding frequency conversion coefficients of an audio signal coded by entropy coding, wherein the entropy coding is performed in order of frequencies on frequency conversion coefficients generated by frequency conversion on the audio signal until an amount of generated codes reaches a preset target code amount; andperforming inverse frequency conversion on the decoded frequency conversion coefficients.

16. The audio decoding method according to claim 15, wherein a predetermined value is substituted for a deficient frequency conversion coefficient when a number of the decoded frequency conversion coefficients is less than a number of the frequency conversion coefficients generated by the frequency conversion.