# US 2014/0156288 A1 · Apparatus and method for synchronizing multichannel extension data with an audio signal and for processing the audio signal > Agents: this data is available as JSON from the patentgrep API and MCP server — see https://patentgrep.com/llms.txt - Number: US 2014/0156288 A1 - Document ID: US20140156288A1 - Status: Published application - Kind: A1 - Application number: 14/175,219 - Filed: 2014-02-07 - Published: 2014-06-05 - Earliest claimed: 2008-02-14 - Assignees: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. - Applicants: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der Angewandten Forschung e.V. - Inventors: Sebastian SCHARRER; Wolfgang FIESEL; Joerg PICKEL; Matthias NEUSINGER - Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US20140156288A1 ## CPC - G10L 19/008: Multichannel audio signal coding or decoding using interchannel correlation to reduce redundancy, e.g. joint-stereo, intensity-coding or matrixing - H04H 60/37: for identifying segments of broadcast information, e.g. scenes or extracting programme ID - H04N 21/2335: {involving reformatting operations of audio signals, e.g. by converting from one coding standard to another (details of audio signal transcoding G10L19/173)} - H04S 3/008: {in which the audio signals are in digital form, i.e. employing more than two discrete digital channels (data reduction aspects thereof based on psychoacoustics G10L19/02)} - H03M 3/388: {by storing corrected or correction values in one or more digital look-up tables} - G10L: SPEECH ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES OR SPEECH SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING TECHNIQUES; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING - H04H: BROADCAST COMMUNICATION (multiplex communication H04J; pictorial communication aspects of broadcast systems H04N) - H04N: PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION - H04S: STEREOPHONIC SYSTEMS - H03M: CODING; DECODING; CODE CONVERSION IN GENERAL (using fluidic means F15C4/00; optical analogue/digital converters G02F7/00; coding, decoding or code conversion, specially adapted for particular applications, see the relevant subclasses, e.g. G01D, G01R, G06F, G06T, G09G, G10L, G11B, G11C, H04B, H04L, H04M, H04N; ciphering or deciphering for cryptography or other purposes involving the need for secrecy G09C) ## Abstract For synchronizing multichannel extension data with an audio signal, wherein the audio signal includes block division information and the multichannel extension data include reference audio signal fingerprint information, the block division information in the audio signal is detected by means of a block detector. Thereupon, block division of the audio signal is performed by a fingerprint calculator according to the block division information in order to obtain a sequence of test audio signal fingerprints. In addition to that, a sequence of reference audio signal fingerprints is extracted from the reference audio signal fingerprint information of the multichannel extension data. Both sequences of fingerprints are correlated in order to obtain a correlation result, by which a compensator is controlled in order to reduce or eliminate a time offset between the multichannel extension data and the audio signal. ## Claims ### Claim 1 An apparatus for processing an audio signal, comprising: a fingerprint calculator for calculating a fingerprint per block of the audio signal for a sequence of subsequent blocks in order to acquire a sequence of reference audio signal fingerprint information, wherein the fingerprint calculator is implemented to use predetermined block division information for calculating the sequence of reference audio signal fingerprint information, or to store used block division information in association with the audio signal; a fingerprint information embedder for associating the reference audio signal fingerprint information with the multichannel extension data, wherein the multichannel extension data are implemented such that an approximation of a multichannel audio signal can be determined with a block of the multichannel extension data together with a block of the audio signal, wherein the fingerprint information embedder is implemented to embed the reference fingerprint information for the block of the audio signal into the block of the multichannel extension data or to insert it into an output signal in association with the block of multichannel extension data; and an output interface for outputting the output signal. ### Claim 2 (depends on 1) The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the audio signal comprises the block division information and the fingerprint calculator is implemented to determine the block division information from the audio signal. ### Claim 3 (depends on 1) The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the audio signal does not comprise the block division information and the fingerprint calculator is implemented to provide the block division information to a block division information embedder, such that the same embeds the block division information into the audio signal, and wherein the output interface is further implemented to output the audio signal with the embedded block division information. ### Claim 4 (depends on 4) The apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the block division information embedder is implemented to embed, as block division information, a watermark into the audio signal. ### Claim 5 (depends on 5) The apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the fingerprint calculator is implemented to perform a block division of the audio signal, and wherein the block division information embedder is implemented to embed a watermark into this block, which is identical to a watermark embedded in a previous or subsequent block. ### Claim 6 (depends on 5) The apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the block division information embedder is implemented to embed a predetermined pseudo noise sequence as watermark. ### Claim 7 (depends on 1) The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the fingerprint calculator is implemented to perform one energy calculation per block of the audio signal. ### Claim 8 (depends on 1) The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the fingerprint calculator is implemented to perform difference formation between a fingerprint value of a previous block and a fingerprint value of a current block. ### Claim 9 (depends on 1) The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the fingerprint calculator is implemented to output values of the current block and the previous block, without difference formation, as reference audio signal fingerprint information. ### Claim 10 (depends on 1) The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the fingerprint calculator is implemented to perform quantization and entropy coding. ### Claim 11 (depends on 1) The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the fingerprint calculator is implemented to perform a static or dynamic amplification regulation adapted to an envelope of the audio signal. ### Claim 12 (depends on 1) The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the fingerprint calculator is implemented to calculate, for a block of the audio signal, a quotient of a maximum value of the audio signal and an arithmetic average of the audio signal in the block. ### Claim 13 (depends on 1) The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the fingerprint calculator is implemented to calculate, per block, a value for the audio signal and to perform 1-bit quantization, wherein a first binary value is acquired when the value of a current block is higher than a value of a previous block, and wherein a second binary value is acquired when the value of the current block is smaller than that of the previous block. ### Claim 14 A method for processing an audio signal, comprising: calculating one fingerprint per block of the audio signal for a sequence of subsequent blocks in order to acquire a sequence of reference audio signal fingerprint information, wherein predetermined block division information is used for calculating the sequence of reference audio signal fingerprint information, or wherein used block division information is stored in association with the audio signal; associating the reference audio signal fingerprint information with the multichannel extension data, wherein the multichannel extension data are implemented such that an approximation of a multichannel audio signal can be determined with a block of multichannel extension data together with a block of the audio signal, wherein the reference fingerprint information for the block of the audio signal is embedded into the block of the multichannel extension data, or inserted into an output signal in association with the block of multichannel extension data; and outputting the output signal. ### Claim 15 A tangible computer-readable medium including a computer program comprising a program code for performing, when the computer program is performed on a computer, a method for processing an audio signal, the method comprising: calculating one fingerprint per block of the audio signal for a sequence of subsequent blocks in order to acquire a sequence of reference audio signal fingerprint information, wherein predetermined block division information is used for calculating the sequence of reference audio signal fingerprint information, or wherein used block division information is stored in association with the audio signal; associating the reference audio signal fingerprint information with the multichannel extension data, wherein the multichannel extension data are implemented such that an approximation of a multichannel audio signal can be determined with a block of multichannel extension data together with a block of the audio signal, wherein the reference fingerprint information for the block of the audio signal is embedded into the block of the multichannel extension data, or inserted into an output signal in association with the block of multichannel extension data; and outputting the output signal.