Patents by Inventor Heiko Purnhagen

Heiko Purnhagen has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20220005484
    Abstract: The present disclosure relates to the field audio coding, an in particular to an audio decoder having at least two decoding modes, and associated decoding methods and decoding software for such audio decoder. In one of the decoding modes, at least one dynamic audio object is mapped to a set of static audio objects, the set of static audio objects corresponding to a predefined speaker configuration. The present disclosure further relates to a corresponding audio encoder, and associated encoding methods and encoding software for such audio encoder.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 30, 2019
    Publication date: January 6, 2022
    Applicant: DOLBY INTERNATIONAL AB
    Inventors: Tobias FRIEDRICH, Heiko PURNHAGEN, Stanislaw GORLOW, Celine MERPILLAT
  • Patent number: 11217259
    Abstract: The invention provides methods and devices for outputting a stereo audio signal having a left channel and a right channel. The apparatus includes a demultiplexer, decoder, and upmixer. The upmixer is configured operate either in a prediction mode or a non-prediction mode based on a parameter encoded in the audio bitstream.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 16, 2020
    Date of Patent: January 4, 2022
    Assignee: Dolby International AB
    Inventors: Heiko Purnhagen, Pontus Carlsson, Lars Villemoes
  • Publication number: 20210390963
    Abstract: The present disclosure provides methods, devices and computer program products for encoding and decoding of a vector of parameters in an audio coding system. The disclosure further relates to a method and apparatus for reconstructing an audio object in an audio decoding system. According to the disclosure, a modulo differential approach for coding and encoding a vector of a non-periodic quantity may improve the coding efficiency and provide encoders and decoders with less memory requirements. Moreover, an efficient method for encoding and decoding a sparse matrix is provided.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 28, 2021
    Publication date: December 16, 2021
    Applicant: DOLBY INTERNATIONAL AB
    Inventors: Leif Jonas SAMUELSSON, Heiko PURNHAGEN
  • Patent number: 11201901
    Abstract: The present document describes a method (900) for establishing control information for a control policy of a client (102) for streaming data (103) from at least one server (101, 701). The method (900) comprises performing (901) a message passing process between a server agent of the server (101, 701) and a client agent of the client (102), in order to iteratively establish control information. Furthermore, the method (900) comprises generating (902) a convergence event for the message passing process to indicate that the control information has been established.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 29, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 14, 2021
    Assignee: Dolby International AB
    Inventors: Janusz Klejsa, Heiko Purnhagen
  • Publication number: 20210375304
    Abstract: An audio processing system (100) accepts an audio bitstream having one of a plurality of predefined audio frame rates. The system comprises a front-end component (110), which receives a variable number of quantized spectral components, corresponding to one audio frame in any of the predefined audio frame rates, and performs an inverse quantization according to predetermined, frequency-dependent quantization levels. The front-end component may be agnostic of the audio frame rate. The audio processing system further comprises a frequency-domain processing stage (120) and a sample rate converter (130), which provide a reconstructed audio signal sampled at a target sampling frequency independent of the audio frame rate. By its frame-rate adaptability, the system can be configured to operate frame-synchronously in parallel with a video processing system that accepts plural video frame rates.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 10, 2021
    Publication date: December 2, 2021
    Applicant: DOLBY INTERNATIONAL AB
    Inventors: Heiko Purnhagen, Kristofer Kjoerling, Alexander Stahlmann, Jens Popp, Karl Jonas Roeden
  • Patent number: 11184709
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for reconstructing N audio channels from M audio channels is disclosed. The method includes receiving a bitstream containing an encoded audio signal representing the M audio channels and decoding the encoded audio signal to obtain a frequency domain representation of the M audio channels. The method further includes extracting a parameter from the bitstream and reconstructing at least one of the N audio channels using the parameter. The parameter represents an angle between two signals, at least one of which is included in the M audio channels.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 13, 2020
    Date of Patent: November 23, 2021
    Assignee: Dolby International AB
    Inventors: Heiko Purnhagen, Lars Villemoes, Jonas Engdegard, Jonas Roeden, Kristofer Kjoerling
  • Patent number: 11145318
    Abstract: There is provided methods and apparatuses for decoding and encoding of audio signals. In particular, a method for decoding includes receiving a waveform-coded signal having a spectral content corresponding to a subset of the frequency range above a cross-over frequency. The waveform-coded signal is interleaved with a parametric high frequency reconstruction of the audio signal above the cross-over frequency. In this way an improved reconstruction of the high frequency bands of the audio signal is achieved.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 24, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 12, 2021
    Assignee: Dolby International AB
    Inventors: Kristofer Kjoerling, Robin Thesing, Harald Mundt, Heiko Purnhagen, Karl Jonas Roeden
  • Patent number: 11133013
    Abstract: Methods and systems encoding a stereo audio signal having a left channel and a right channel are disclosed. The system includes a downmixer for generating a downmix signal and a residual signal from the stereo audio signal in selected frequency bands representing only part of a used audio frequency range of the stereo audio signal, and a decision module for selecting, in a time variant manner, either left/right perceptual encoding or mid/side perceptual encoding. The system also includes a parameter estimator for estimating stereo parameters for reconstructing a stereo image of a portion of the stereo audio signal, and a perceptual encoder for performing either left/right perceptual encoding or mid/side perceptual encoding based on the selecting to generate an encoded output signal. Finally, the system includes a bitstream generator for creating a bitstream signal comprising the encoded output signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 20, 2019
    Date of Patent: September 28, 2021
    Assignee: Dolby International AB
    Inventors: Heiko Purnhagen, Pontus Carlsson, Kristofer Kjoerling
  • Publication number: 20210295852
    Abstract: A method for encoding an input audio stream including the steps of obtaining a first playback stream presentation of the input audio stream intended for reproduction on a first audio reproduction system, obtaining a second playback stream presentation of the input audio stream intended for reproduction on a second audio reproduction system, determining a set of transform parameters suitable for transforming an intermediate playback stream presentation to an approximation of the second playback stream presentation, wherein the transform parameters are determined by minimization of a measure of a difference between the approximation of the second playback stream presentation and the second playback stream presentation, and encoding the first playback stream presentation and the set of transform parameters for transmission to a decoder.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 8, 2021
    Publication date: September 23, 2021
    Applicants: DOLBY LABORATORIES LICENSING CORPORATION, DOLBY INTERNATIONAL AB
    Inventors: Dirk Jeroen Breebaart, David Matthew Cooper, Leif Jonas Samuelsson, Jeroen Koppens, Rhonda J. Wilson, Heiko Purnhagen, Alexander Stahlmann
  • Publication number: 20210287684
    Abstract: Audio objects are associated with positional metadata. A received downmix signal comprises downmix channels that are linear combinations of one or more audio objects and are associated with respective positional locators. In a first aspect, the downmix signal, the positional metadata and frequency-dependent object gains are received. An audio object is reconstructed by applying the object gain to an upmix of the downmix signal in accordance with coefficients based on the positional metadata and the positional locators. In a second aspect, audio objects have been encoded together with at least one bed channel positioned at a positional locator of a corresponding downmix channel. The decoding system receives the downmix signal and the positional metadata of the audio objects. A bed channel is reconstructed by suppressing the content representing audio objects from the corresponding downmix channel on the basis of the positional locator of the corresponding downmix channel.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 1, 2021
    Publication date: September 16, 2021
    Applicant: DOLBY INTERNATIONAL AB
    Inventors: Toni Hirvonen, Heiko Purnhagen, Leif Jonas Samuelsson, Lars Villemoes
  • Patent number: 11114107
    Abstract: A method for decoding an encoded audio bitstream in an audio processing system is disclosed. The method includes extracting from the encoded audio bitstream a first waveform-coded signal comprising spectral coefficients corresponding to frequencies up to a first cross-over frequency for a time frame and performing parametric decoding at a second cross-over frequency for the time frame to generate a reconstructed signal. The second cross-over frequency is above the first cross-over frequency and the parametric decoding uses reconstruction parameters derived from the encoded audio bitstream to generate the reconstructed signal. The method also includes extracting from the encoded audio bitstream a second waveform-coded signal comprising spectral coefficients corresponding to a subset of frequencies above the first cross-over frequency for the time frame and interleaving the second waveform-coded signal with the reconstructed signal to produce an interleaved signal for the time frame.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 4, 2019
    Date of Patent: September 7, 2021
    Assignee: Dolby International AB
    Inventors: Kristofer Kjoerling, Heiko Purnhagen, Harald Mundt, Karl Jonas Roeden, Leif Sehlstrom
  • Publication number: 20210270106
    Abstract: On the basis of a bitstream (P), an n-channel audio signal (X) is reconstructed by deriving an m-channel core signal (Y) and multichannel coding parameters (a) from the bitstream, where 1?m<n. Also derived from the bitstream are pre-processing dynamic range control, DRC, parameters (DRC2) quantifying an encoder-side dynamic range limiting of the core signal. The n-channel audio signal is obtained by parametric synthesis in accordance with the multichannel coding parameters and while cancelling any encoder-side dynamic range limiting based on the pre-processing DRC parameters. In particular embodiments, the reconstruction further includes use of compensated post-processing DRC parameters quantifying a potential decoder-side dynamic range compression. Cancellation of an encoder-side range limitation and range compression are preferably performed by different decoder-side components. Cancellation and compression may be coordinated by a DRC pre-processor.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 15, 2021
    Publication date: September 2, 2021
    Applicants: DOLBY LABORATORIES LICENSING CORPORATION, DOLBY INTERNATIONAL AB
    Inventors: Jeffrey RIEDMILLER, Karl J. ROEDEN, Kristofer KJOERLING, Heiko PURNHAGEN, Vinay MELKOTE, Leif SEHLSTROM
  • Patent number: 11037582
    Abstract: An audio processing system (100) accepts an audio bitstream having one of a plurality of predefined audio frame rates. The system comprises a front-end component (110), which receives a variable number of quantized spectral components, corresponding to one audio frame in any of the predefined audio frame rates, and performs an inverse quantization according to predetermined, frequency-dependent quantization levels. The front-end component may be agnostic of the audio frame rate. The audio processing system further comprises a frequency-domain processing stage (120) and a sample rate converter (130), which provide a reconstructed audio signal sampled at a target sampling frequency independent of the audio frame rate. By its frame-rate adaptability, the system can be configured to operate frame-synchronously in parallel with a video processing system that accepts plural video frame rates.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 23, 2018
    Date of Patent: June 15, 2021
    Assignee: Dolby International AB
    Inventors: Heiko Purnhagen, Kristofer Kjoerling, Alexander Stahlmann, Jens Popp, Karl Jonas Roeden
  • Publication number: 20210166708
    Abstract: The present document describes a method (700) for encoding a multi-channel input signal (201). The method (700) comprises determining (701) a plurality of downmix channel signals (203) from the multi-channel input signal (201) and performing (702) energy compaction of the plurality of downmix channel signals (203) to provide a plurality of compacted channel signals (404). Furthermore, the method (700) comprises determining (703) joint coding metadata (205) based on the plurality of compacted channel signals (404) and based on the multi-channel input signal (201), wherein the joint coding metadata (205) is such that it allows upmixing of the plurality of compacted channel signals (404) to an approximation of the multi-channel input signal (201). In addition, the method (700) comprises encoding (704) the plurality of compacted channel signals (404) and the joint coding metadata (205).
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 2, 2019
    Publication date: June 3, 2021
    Applicants: DOLBY INTERNATIONAL AB, DOLBY LABORATORIES LICENSING CORPORATION
    Inventors: David S. MCGRATH, Michael ECKERT, Heiko PURNHAGEN, Stefan BRUHN
  • Patent number: 11024320
    Abstract: The present disclosure provides methods, devices and computer program products for encoding and decoding of a vector of parameters in an audio coding system. The disclosure further relates to a method and apparatus for reconstructing an audio object in an audio decoding system. According to the disclosure, a modulo differential approach for coding and encoding a vector of a non-periodic quantity may improve the coding efficiency and provide encoders and decoders with less memory requirements. Moreover, an efficient method for encoding and decoding a sparse matrix is provided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 10, 2020
    Date of Patent: June 1, 2021
    Assignee: Dolby International AB
    Inventors: Leif Jonas Samuelsson, Heiko Purnhagen
  • Publication number: 20210158827
    Abstract: The present document relates to time-alignment of encoded data of an audio encoder with associated metadata, such as spectral band replication (SBR) metadata. An audio decoder configured to determine a reconstructed frame of an audio signal from an access unit of a received data stream is described. The access unit comprises waveform data and metadata, wherein the waveform data and the metadata are associated with the same reconstructed frame of the audio signal. The audio decoder comprises a waveform processing path configured to generate a plurality of waveform subband signals from the waveform data, and a metadata processing path configured to generate decoded metadata from the metadata.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 2, 2020
    Publication date: May 27, 2021
    Applicant: DOLBY INTERNATIONAL AB
    Inventors: Kristofer KJOERLING, Heiko PURNHAGEN, Jens POPP
  • Patent number: 11017785
    Abstract: The application relates to audio encoder and decoder systems. An embodiment of the encoder system comprises a downmix stage for generating a downmix signal and a residual signal based on a stereo signal. In addition, the encoder system comprises a parameter determining stage for determining parametric stereo parameters such as an inter-channel intensity difference and an inter-channel cross-correlation. Preferably, the parametric stereo parameters are time- and frequency-variant. Moreover, the encoder system comprises a transform stage. The transform stage generates a pseudo left/right stereo signal by performing a transform based on the downmix signal and the residual signal. The pseudo stereo signal is processed by a perceptual stereo encoder. For stereo encoding, left/right encoding or mid/side encoding is selectable. Preferably, the selection between left/right stereo encoding and mid/side stereo encoding is time- and frequency-variant.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 29, 2019
    Date of Patent: May 25, 2021
    Assignee: Dolby International AB
    Inventors: Heiko Purnhagen, Pontus Carlsson, Kristofer Kjoerling
  • Publication number: 20210151062
    Abstract: A method for decoding an encoded audio bitstream is disclosed. The method includes receiving the encoded audio bitstream and decoding the audio data to generate a decoded lowband audio signal. The method further includes extracting high frequency reconstruction metadata and filtering the decoded lowband audio signal with an analysis filterbank to generate a filtered lowband audio signal. The method also includes extracting a flag indicating whether either spectral translation or harmonic transposition is to be performed on the audio data and regenerating a highband portion of the audio signal using the filtered lowband audio signal and the high frequency reconstruction metadata in accordance with the flag. The high frequency regeneration is performed as a post-processing operation with a delay of 3010 samples per audio channel.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 25, 2019
    Publication date: May 20, 2021
    Applicant: Dolby International AB
    Inventors: Kristofer KJOERLING, Lars VILLEMOES, Heiko PURNHAGEN, Per EKSTRAND
  • Publication number: 20210142813
    Abstract: Embodiments relate to an audio processing unit that includes a bitstream payload deformatter and a decoding subsystem. The decoding subsystem is coupled to the bitstream payload deformatter and configured to decode at least a portion of a block of an encoded audio bitstream. The block includes a fill element with an identifier indicating a start of the fill element and fill data after the identifier. The fill data includes at least one flag identifying whether a base form of spectral band replication or an enhanced form of spectral band replication is to be performed on audio content of the block. The identifier is a three bit unsigned integer transmitted most significant bit first and having a value of 0x6.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 21, 2021
    Publication date: May 13, 2021
    Applicant: DOLBY INTERNATIONAL AB
    Inventors: Lars Villemoes, Heiko Purnhagen, Per Ekstrand
  • Publication number: 20210144189
    Abstract: The present document describes a method (900) for establishing control information for a control policy of a client (102) for streaming data (103) from at least one server (101, 701). The method (900) comprises performing (901) a message passing process between a server agent of the server (101, 701) and a client agent of the client (102), in order to iteratively establish control information. Furthermore, the method (900) comprises generating (902) a convergence event for the message passing process to indicate that the control information has been established.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 29, 2019
    Publication date: May 13, 2021
    Applicant: DOLBY INTERNATIONAL AB
    Inventors: Janusz KLEJSA, Heiko PURNHAGEN