Patents by Inventor Nikolaus Rettelbach

Nikolaus Rettelbach 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).

  • Patent number: 9711157
    Abstract: An encoder for providing an audio stream on the basis of a transform-domain representation of an input audio signal includes a quantization error calculator configured to determine a multi-band quantization error over a plurality of frequency bands of the input audio signal for which separate band gain information is available. The encoder also includes an audio stream provider for providing the audio stream such that the audio stream includes information describing an audio content of the frequency bands and information describing the multi-band quantization error. A decoder for providing a decoded representation of an audio signal on the basis of an encoded audio stream representing spectral components of frequency bands of the audio signal includes a noise filler for introducing noise into spectral components of a plurality of frequency bands to which separate frequency band gain information is associated on the basis of a common multi-band noise intensity value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 24, 2014
    Date of Patent: July 18, 2017
    Assignee: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
    Inventors: Nikolaus Rettelbach, Bernhard Grill, Guillaume Fuchs, Stefan Geyersberger, Markus Multrus, Harald Popp, Juergen Herre, Stefan Wabnik, Gerald Schuller, Jens Hirschfeld
  • Patent number: 9697838
    Abstract: An apparatus for generating a representation of a bandwidth-extended signal on the basis of an input signal representation includes a phase vocoder configured to obtain values of a spectral domain representation of a first patch of the bandwidth-extended signal on the basis of the input signal representation. The apparatus also includes a value copier configured to copy a set of values of the spectral domain representation of the first patch, which values are provided by the phase vocoder, to obtain a set of values of a spectral domain representation of a second patch, wherein the second patch is associated with higher frequencies than the first patch. The apparatus is configured to obtain the representation of the bandwidth-extended signal using the values of the spectral domain representation of the first patch and the values of the spectral domain representation of the second patch.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 1, 2010
    Date of Patent: July 4, 2017
    Assignee: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
    Inventors: Frederik Nagel, Max Neuendorf, Nikolaus Rettelbach, Jeremie Lecomte, Markus Multrus, Bernhard Grill, Sascha Disch
  • Patent number: 9653089
    Abstract: An apparatus for decoding data segments representing a time-domain data stream, a data segment being encoded in the time domain or in the frequency domain, a data segment being encoded in the frequency domain having successive blocks of data representing successive and overlapping blocks of time-domain data samples. The apparatus includes a time-domain decoder for decoding a data segment being encoded in the time domain and a processor for processing the data segment being encoded in the frequency domain and output data of the time-domain decoder to obtain overlapping time-domain data blocks. The apparatus further includes an overlap/add-combiner for combining the overlapping time-domain data blocks to obtain a decoded data segment of the time-domain data stream.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 8, 2016
    Date of Patent: May 16, 2017
    Assignee: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
    Inventors: Ralf Geiger, Max Neuendorf, Yoshikazu Yokotani, Nikolaus Rettelbach, Juergen Herre, Stefan Geyersberger
  • Patent number: 9633663
    Abstract: An audio encoding apparatus includes an encoder for encoding a time segment of an input audio signal to be encoded to obtain a corresponding encoded signal segment. The audio encoding apparatus further includes a decoder for decoding the encoded signal segment to obtain a re-decoded signal segment. A clipping detector is provided for analyzing the re-decoded signal segment with respect to at least one of an actual signal clipping or an perceptible signal clipping and for generating a corresponding clipping alert. The encoder is further configured to again encode the time segment of the audio signal with at least one modified encoding parameter resulting in a reduced clipping probability in response to the clipping alert.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 13, 2014
    Date of Patent: April 25, 2017
    Assignee: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foederung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
    Inventors: Albert Heuberger, Bernd Edler, Nikolaus Rettelbach, Stefan Geyersberger, Johannes Hilpert
  • Patent number: 9633664
    Abstract: An audio decoder includes an arithmetic decoder for providing decoded spectral values on the basis of an arithmetically-encoded representation of the spectral values and a frequency-domain-to-time-domain converter for providing a time-domain audio representation using the decoded spectral values. The arithmetic decoder selects a mapping rule describing a mapping of a code value onto a symbol code in dependence on a context state described by a numeric current context value, and determines the numeric current context value in dependence on a plurality of previously-decoded spectral values. The arithmetic decoder modifies a number representation of a numeric previous context value, describing a context state associated with one or more previously decoded spectral values, in dependence on a context subregion value, to acquire a number representation of a numeric current context value describing a context state associated with one or more spectral values to be decoded. An audio encoder uses a similar concept.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 19, 2014
    Date of Patent: April 25, 2017
    Assignee: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
    Inventors: Vignesh Subbaraman, Guillaume Fuchs, Markus Multrus, Nikolaus Rettelbach, Oliver Weiss, Marc Gayer, Patrick Warmbold, Christian Griebel
  • Patent number: 9595262
    Abstract: An encoding concept which is linear prediction based and uses spectral domain noise shaping is rendered less complex at a comparable coding efficiency in terms of, for example, rate/distortion ratio, by using the spectral decomposition of the audio input signal into a spectrogram having a sequence of spectra for both linear prediction coefficient computation as well as spectral domain shaping based on the linear prediction coefficients. The coding efficiency may remain even if such a lapped transform is used for the spectral decomposition which causes aliasing and necessitates time aliasing cancellation such as critically sampled lapped transforms such as an MDCT.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 14, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2017
    Assignee: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
    Inventors: Goran Markovic, Guillaume Fuchs, Nikolaus Rettelbach, Christian Helmrich, Benjamin Schubert
  • Patent number: 9552822
    Abstract: An apparatus for processing an audio signal is provided. The apparatus has a signal processor and a configurator. The configurator is adapted to configure the signal processor based on configuration information such that a configurable upsampling factor is equal to a first upsampling value when a first ratio of the second configurable number of samples to a first configurable number of samples has a first ratio value. Moreover, the configurator is adapted to configure the signal processor such that the configurable upsampling factor is equal to a different second upsampling value, when a different second ratio of the second configurable number of samples to the first configurable number of samples has a different second ratio value. The first or the second ratio value is not an integer value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 3, 2013
    Date of Patent: January 24, 2017
    Assignees: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V., VoiceAge Corporation
    Inventors: Markus Multrus, Bernhard Grill, Nikolaus Rettelbach, Guillaume Fuchs, Max Neuendorf, Bruno Bessette, Roch Lefebvre, Philippe Gournay, Stephan Wilde
  • Publication number: 20170004839
    Abstract: An encoder for providing an audio stream on the basis of a transform-domain representation of an input audio signal includes a quantization error calculator configured to determine a multi-band quantization error over a plurality of frequency bands of the input audio signal for which separate band gain information is available. The encoder also includes an audio stream provider for providing the audio stream such that the audio stream includes information describing an audio content of the frequency bands and information describing the multi-band quantization error. A decoder for providing a decoded representation of an audio signal on the basis of an encoded audio stream representing spectral components of frequency bands of the audio signal includes a noise filler for introducing noise into spectral components of a plurality of frequency bands to which separate frequency band gain information is associated on the basis of a common multi-band noise intensity value.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 15, 2016
    Publication date: January 5, 2017
    Applicant: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der Angewandten Forschung e.V.
    Inventors: Nikolaus RETTELBACH, Bernhard GRILL, Guillaume FUCHS, Stefan GEYERSBERGER, Markus MULTRUS, Harald POPP, Juergen HERRE, Stefan WABNIK, Gerald SCHULLER, Jens HIRSCHFELD
  • Patent number: 9449606
    Abstract: An encoder for providing an audio stream on the basis of a transform-domain representation of an input audio signal includes a quantization error calculator configured to determine a multi-band quantization error over a plurality of frequency bands of the input audio signal for which separate band gain information is available. The encoder also includes an audio stream provider for providing the audio stream such that the audio stream includes information describing an audio content of the frequency bands and information describing the multi-band quantization error. A decoder for providing a decoded representation of an audio signal on the basis of an encoded audio stream representing spectral components of frequency bands of the audio signal includes a noise filler for introducing noise into spectral components of a plurality of frequency bands to which separate frequency band gain information is associated on the basis of a common multi-band noise intensity value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 16, 2014
    Date of Patent: September 20, 2016
    Assignee: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
    Inventors: Nikolaus Rettelbach, Bernhard Grill, Guillaume Fuchs, Stefan Geyersberger, Markus Multrus, Harald Popp, Juergen Herre, Stefan Wabnik, Gerald Schuller, Jens Hirschfeld
  • Publication number: 20160232910
    Abstract: An audio decoder decodes a bit stream of encoded audio data, which bit stream represents a sequence of audio sample values and includes a plurality of frames, wherein each frame includes associated encoded audio sample values. The audio decoder includes a determiner configured to determine whether a frame of the encoded audio data is a special frame including encoded audio sample values associated with the special frame and additional information, wherein the additional information include encoded audio sample values of a number of frames preceding the special frame, wherein the encoded audio sample values of the preceding frames are encoded using the same codec configuration as the special frame, wherein the number of preceding frames is sufficient to initialize the decoder to be in a position to decode the audio sample values associated with the special frame if the special frame is the first frame upon start-up of the decoder.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 18, 2016
    Publication date: August 11, 2016
    Inventors: Daniel FISCHER, Bernd CZELHAN, Max NEUENDORF, Nikolaus RETTELBACH, Ingo HOFMANN, Harald FUCHS, Stefan DOEHLA, Nikolaus FAERBER
  • Publication number: 20160225383
    Abstract: An apparatus for decoding data segments representing a time-domain data stream, a data segment being encoded in the time domain or in the frequency domain, a data segment being encoded in the frequency domain having successive blocks of data representing successive and overlapping blocks of time-domain data samples. The apparatus includes a time-domain decoder for decoding a data segment being encoded in the time domain and a processor for processing the data segment being encoded in the frequency domain and output data of the time-domain decoder to obtain overlapping time-domain data blocks. The apparatus further includes an overlap/add-combiner for combining the overlapping time-domain data blocks to obtain a decoded data segment of the time-domain data stream.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 8, 2016
    Publication date: August 4, 2016
    Inventors: Ralf GEIGER, Max NEUENDORF, Yoshikazu YOKOTANI, Nikolaus RETTELBACH, Juergen HERRE, Stefan GEYERSBERGER
  • Patent number: 9398294
    Abstract: An encoder/decoder is based on a combination of two audio or video channels to obtain a first combination signal as a mid-signal and a residual signal derivable using a predicted side signal derived from the mid-signal. A decoder uses the prediction residual signal, the first combination signal, a prediction direction indicator and prediction information to derive decoded first channel and second channel signals. A real-to-imaginary transform can be applied for estimating the imaginary part of the spectrum of the first combination signal. The prediction signal used in the derivation of the prediction residual signal, the real-valued first combination signal is multiplied by a real portion of the complex prediction information and the estimated imaginary part of the first combination signal is multiplied by an imaginary portion of the complex prediction information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 5, 2012
    Date of Patent: July 19, 2016
    Assignee: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
    Inventors: Julien Robillard, Matthias Neusinger, Christian Helmrich, Johannes Hilpert, Nikolaus Rettelbach, Sascha Disch, Bernd Edler
  • Patent number: 9355647
    Abstract: An apparatus for decoding data segments representing a time-domain data stream, a data segment being encoded in the time domain or in the frequency domain, a data segment being encoded in the frequency domain having successive blocks of data representing successive and overlapping blocks of time-domain data samples. The apparatus includes a time-domain decoder for decoding a data segment being encoded in the time domain and a processor for processing the data segment being encoded in the frequency domain and output data of the time-domain decoder to obtain overlapping time-domain data blocks. The apparatus further includes an overlap/add-combiner for combining the overlapping time-domain data blocks to obtain a decoded data segment of the time-domain data stream.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 3, 2015
    Date of Patent: May 31, 2016
    Assignee: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
    Inventors: Ralf Geiger, Max Neuendorf, Yoshikazu Yokotani, Nikolaus Rettelbach, Juergen Herre, Stefan Geyersberger
  • Patent number: 9275652
    Abstract: A signal manipulator for manipulating an audio signal having a transient event may have a transient remover, a signal processor and a signal inserter for inserting a time portion in a processed audio signal at a signal location where the transient event was removed before processing by the transient remover, so that a manipulated audio signal has a transient event not influenced by the processing, whereby the vertical coherence of the transient event is maintained instead of any processing performed in the signal processor, which would destroy the vertical coherence of a transient.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 17, 2009
    Date of Patent: March 1, 2016
    Assignee: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
    Inventors: Sascha Disch, Frederik Nagel, Nikolaus Rettelbach, Markus Multrus, Guillaume Fuchs
  • Patent number: 9236062
    Abstract: A signal manipulator for manipulating an audio signal having a transient event may have a transient remover, a signal processor and a signal inserter for inserting a time portion in a processed audio signal at a signal location where the transient event was removed before processing by the transient remover, so that a manipulated audio signal has a transient event not influenced by the processing, whereby the vertical coherence of the transient event is maintained instead of any processing performed in the signal processor, which would destroy the vertical coherence of a transient.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 7, 2012
    Date of Patent: January 12, 2016
    Assignee: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
    Inventors: Sascha Disch, Frederik Nagel, Nikolaus Rettelbach, Markus Multrus, Guillaume Fuchs
  • Patent number: 9230558
    Abstract: A signal manipulator for manipulating an audio signal having a transient event may have a transient remover, a signal processor and a signal inserter for inserting a time portion in a processed audio signal at a signal location where the transient event was removed before processing by the transient remover, so that a manipulated audio signal has a transient event not influenced by the processing, whereby the vertical coherence of the transient event is maintained instead of any processing performed in the signal processor, which would destroy the vertical coherence of a transient.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 7, 2012
    Date of Patent: January 5, 2016
    Assignee: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
    Inventors: Sascha Disch, Frederik Nagel, Nikolaus Rettelbach, Markus Multrus, Guillaume Fuchs
  • Publication number: 20150332695
    Abstract: The invention provides an audio encoder including a combination of a linear predictive coding filter having a plurality of linear predictive coding coefficients and a time-frequency converter, wherein the combination is configured to filter and to convert a frame of the audio signal into a frequency domain in order to output a spectrum based on the frame and on the linear predictive coding coefficients; a low frequency emphasizer configured to calculate a processed spectrum based on the spectrum, wherein spectral lines of the processed spectrum representing a lower frequency than a reference spectral line are emphasized; and a control device configured to control the calculation of the processed spectrum by the low frequency emphasizer depending on the linear predictive coding coefficients of the linear predictive coding filter.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 28, 2015
    Publication date: November 19, 2015
    Inventors: Stefan DOEHLA, Bernhard GRILL, Christian HELMRICH, Nikolaus RETTELBACH
  • Publication number: 20150194160
    Abstract: An audio encoder for encoding segments of coefficients, the segments of coefficients representing different time or frequency resolutions of a sampled audio signal, the audio encoder including a processor for deriving a coding context for a currently encoded coefficient of a current segment based on a previously encoded coefficient of a previous segment, the previously encoded coefficient representing a different time or frequency resolution than the currently encoded coefficient. The audio encoder further includes an entropy encoder for entropy encoding the current coefficient based on the coding context to obtain an encoded audio stream.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 5, 2015
    Publication date: July 9, 2015
    Inventors: Markus MULTRUS, Bernhard GRILL, Guillaume FUCHS, Stefan GEYERSBERGER, Nikolaus RETTELBACH, Virgilio BACIGALUPO
  • Publication number: 20150179183
    Abstract: An apparatus for decoding data segments representing a time-domain data stream, a data segment being encoded in the time domain or in the frequency domain, a data segment being encoded in the frequency domain having successive blocks of data representing successive and overlapping blocks of time-domain data samples. The apparatus includes a time-domain decoder for decoding a data segment being encoded in the time domain and a processor for processing the data segment being encoded in the frequency domain and output data of the time-domain decoder to obtain overlapping time-domain data blocks. The apparatus further includes an overlap/add-combiner for combining the overlapping time-domain data blocks to obtain a decoded data segment of the time-domain data stream.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 3, 2015
    Publication date: June 25, 2015
    Inventors: Ralf GEIGER, Max NEUENDORF, Yoshikazu YOKOTANI, Nikolaus RETTELBACH, Juergen HERRE, Stefan GEYERSBERGER
  • Publication number: 20150154967
    Abstract: An audio encoder has a first information sink oriented encoding branch, a second information source or SNR oriented encoding branch, and a switch for switching between the first encoding branch and the second encoding branch, wherein the second encoding branch has a converter into a specific domain different from the spectral domain, and wherein the second encoding branch furthermore has a specific domain coding branch, and a specific spectral domain coding branch, and an additional switch for switching between the specific domain coding branch and the specific spectral domain coding branch. An audio decoder has a first domain decoder, a second domain decoder for decoding a signal, and a third domain decoder and two cascaded switches for switching between the decoders.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 22, 2014
    Publication date: June 4, 2015
    Inventors: Bernhard GRILL, Roch LEFEBVRE, Bruno BESSETTE, Jimmy LAPIERRE, Philippe GOURNAY, Redwan SALAMI, Stefan BAYER, Guillaume FUCHS, Stefan GEYERSBERGER, Ralf GEIGER, Johannes HILPERT, Ulrich KRAEMER, Jeremie LECOMTE, Markus MULTRUS, Max NEUENDORF, Harald POPP, Nikolaus RETTELBACH