Patent attributes
A method is shown for supporting a multichannel audio extension at an encoding end of a multichannel audio coding system. In order to improve the audio quality over a large frequency range, the method comprises transforming each channel of a multichannel audio signal into the frequency domain and dividing a bandwidth of the frequency domain signals into a first region of lower frequencies and at least one further region of higher frequencies. Then, the frequency domain signals are encoded in each of the frequency regions with another type of coding to obtain parametric multichannel extension information for the respective frequency region. The invention relates equally to a method for supporting in a corresponding manner a multichannel audio extension at a decoding end. Also shown are a corresponding encoder, a corresponding decoder, and corresponding devices, systems and software program products.