AUDIO SIGNAL ENCODING DEVICE AND AUDIO SIGNAL ENCODING METHOD

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve the problem that the number of bits of envelope information of a block sectioned by changes on a time axis which are hardly perceived increase and the number of bits necessary to encode perceptionally important information decreases to cause a reproduced audio signal to deteriorate in perceptional quality. SOLUTION: An audio signal encoding device is equipped with a masking level calculating means 25 and a block border correcting means 26. The masking level calculating means 25 calculates the masking level of forward masking or backward masking that a signal component included in a block whose envelope information E1 is calculated influences a signal component included in a following or precedent block on the time axis and combines two or more blocks where segment signal levels included therein are smaller than the masking level and which are successive on the time axis to suppress an increase in the number of blocks of the envelope information. COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI