Method and Apparatus for downmixing MPEG SAOC-like encoded audio signals at receiver side in a manner different from the manner of downmixing at encoder side

摘要

Content providers can add metadata to audio content such that consumers can control down-mix or dynamic range of selected parts of the audio signal. MPEG Spatial Audio Object Coding (SAOC) deals with parametric coding techniques for complex audio scenes at bit rates normally used for mono or stereo sound coding, offering at decoder side an interactive rendering of the audio objects mixed into the audio scene, whereby only a small amount of extra information is added to the audio bit stream. In parametric coding the biggest issue is that a perfect separation between objects is usually not possible. This issue is treated in the MPEG SAOC standard by using residual coding techniques and ensuring better separation only for a small set of objects before encoding. The invention describes how, by adding only a small amount of extra information to SAOC parameters, at receiver side a remixing of a broadcast audio signal is achieved, by using information about the actual mix of the audio signal, audio signal characteristics like correlation, and the desired audio scene rendering.