System, medium, and method of encoding/decoding multi-channel audio signals
An system, method, and method of encoding/decoding a multi-channel audio signal, including a decoding level generation unit producing decoding-level information that helps a bitstream including a number of audio channel signals and space information to be decoded into a number of audio channel signals, wherein the space information includes information about magnitude differences and/or similarities between channels, and an audio decoder decoding the bitstream according to the decoding-level information. Accordingly, even a single input bitstream can be decoded into a suitable number of channels depending on the type of a speaker configuration used. Scalable channel decoding can be achieved by partially decoding an input bitstream. In the scalable channel decoding, a decoder may set decoding levels and outputs audio channel signals according to the decoding levels, thereby reducing decoding complexity.
1. A multi-channel audio signal decoding system, comprising:
a TTT decoder to decode two audio channel signals and space information, with a corresponding bitstream comprising corresponding two encoded audio channel signals, into three audio channel signals, as first, second, and third channel signals, wherein the space information comprises information of magnitude differences and/or similarities between corresponding channels;
a first OTT decoder to decode the first channel signal into a first plural channel signals;
a second OTT decoder to decode the second channel signal into a second plural channel signals;
a third OTT decoder to decode the third channel signal into a third plural channel signals;
a fourth OTT decoder to decode one of the first plural channel signals output by the first OTT decoder into a fourth plural channel signals; and
a fifth OTT decoder to decode one of the second plural channel signals output by the second OTT decoder into a fifth plural channel signals,
wherein the system is arranged to generate a 5.1 channel output from the corresponding bitstream comprising the two encoded audio channel signals such that a decoder is configured to decode a channel signal into a center audio channel C and an LFE audio channel based on corresponding space information.
2. The multi-channel audio signal decoding system of claim 1 , further comprising a decoding level generation unit to generate decoding-level information to control decoding levels of the bitstream into a number of audio channel signals.
3. The multi-channel audio signal decoding system of claim 1 , wherein the two audio channel signals and space information are encodings of a channel tree structure representing more than a 5.1 multi-channel signal while the generated 5.1 channel output is based on a 5-2-5 tree structure.
4. The multi-channel audio signal decoding method of claim 3 , further comprising generating decoding-level information to control decoding levels of the bitstream into a number of audio channel signals.
5. The multi-channel audio signal decoding method of claim 1 , wherein the two audio channel signals and space information are encodings of a channel tree structure representing more than a 5.1 multi-channel signal while the generated 5.1 channel output is based on a 5-2-5 tree structure.