SCALABLE ENCODING APPARATUS AND SCALABLE ENCODING METHOD

摘要

A scalable encoding apparatus wherein the degradation of sound quality of a decoded signal can be prevented, while the encoding rate and the circuit scale can be reduced. In this apparatus, an L-channel signal processing part (105-1) uses L-channel space information to generate an L-channel signal (L1) to produce a processed signal (L2) that is similar to a monophonic signal (M1). An L-channel processed signal combining part (106-1) uses both the processed signal (L2) and a sound source signal (S1) generated by a sound source signal generating part (104) to generate a combined signal (L3). An R-channel signal processing part (105-2) and an R-channel processed signal combining part (106-2) operate similarly. A distortion minimizing part (103) controls the sound source signal generating part (104) to generate such a common sound source signal (S1) that the sum of the encoding distortions of combined signals (M2,L3,R3) is minimized.