METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR COMPRESSING, METHOD FOR TRANSMITTING, AND METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR EXPANDING COMPRESSED MULTI-CHANNEL SOUND SIGNALS, AND RECORDING MEDIUM FOR COMPRESSED MULTI-CHANNEL SOUND SIGNALS.

摘要

PCT No. PCT/US94/14267 Sec. 371 Date Nov. 20, 1995 Sec. 102(e) Date Nov. 20, 1995 PCT Filed Dec. 7, 1994A multi-channel signal compressor for compressing digital sound signals in the respective channels of a multi-channel sound system. The apparatus comprises a first-stage compression system and a second-stage compression system. In the first-stage compression system, a coupling circuit performs coupling between the digital sound signals of at least two of the channels to generate coupling-processed signals, one for each of the channels. A compressor circuit receives the coupling-processed signals from the coupling circuit and frequency divides each coupling-processed signal into frequency range signals in respective frequency ranges, and compresses the frequency range signals obtained by dividing each coupling-processed signal to generate a first-stage compressed signal. In the second-stage compression system, a determining circuit receives the first-stage compressed signal for each channel from the first-stage compression system and determines an energy for each channel from the first-stage compressed signal of the respective channel. A channel bit apportionment decision circuit operates in response to the determining circuit, and apportions a predetermined number of bits among the channels to apportion a number of bits to each channel. Finally, an additional compressor additionally compresses the first-stage compressed signal of each channel using, for each channel, the number of bits apportioned to the respective channel by the channel bit apportionment decision circuit.