Rate-Distortion Optimization for Multichannel Audio Compression

Multichannel audio coding is studied from a rate-distortion theoret-
ical viewpoint. Two practical coding techniques, both of which are
based on rate-distortion optimization, are also proposed. The first
technique decorrelates a multichannel signal hierarchically using el-
ementary unitary transforms. The second method rearranges a mul-
tichannel signal into sub-signals and compresses them at optimized
bit rates using a conventional codec. Both objective and subjective
tests were conducted to illustrate the efficiency of the methods.

• Machine Perception

• Speech Processing