Lossless audio compression - A scalable approach

Abstract

<P>RECENTLY, RESEARCH ON LOSSLESS AUDIO COMPRESSION HAS ATTRACTED MORE AND MORE ATTENTION DUE TO THE INCREASING DEMAND OF HIGH QUALITY AUDIO FOR BOTH STUDIO APPLICATIONS AND HIGH-END USERS, FOR WHICH TRADITIONAL LOSSY DIGITAL AUDIO COMPRESSION IS NOT AN OPTION. IN THIS THESIS, WE EXPLORE LOSSLESS AUDIO COMPRESSION TECHNOLOGIES THAT PUSH THE LIMIT OF THE STATE-OF-THE-ART PERFORMANCE OF LOSSLESS AUDIO COMPRESSION, AND MEANWHILE INTRODUCE USEFUL FEATURES SUCH AS SCALABILITY TO MAXIMIZE ITS AVAILABILITY TO THE END USER. THIS RESEARCH WORK HAS LED TO THE INVENTION OF ADVANCED AUDIO ZIP (AAZ), A FINE GRAINED SCALABLE TO LOSSLESS AUDIO CODER. AAZ INTEGRATES THE FUNCTIONALITIES OF PERCEPTUAL AUDIO CODING, SCALABLE AUDIO CODING AND LOSSLESS AUDIO CODING IN A SINGLE FRAMEWORK, AND IT IS BACKWARD COMPATIBLE TO MPEG-4 AAC. DUE TO ITS EXCELLENT PERFORMANCE AND ABUNDANT FEATURES, AAZ HAS BEEN SELECTED AS THE REFERENCE MODEL OF ISO/IEC 14496-3/AMD 5, MPEG-4 AUDIO SCALABLE TO LOSSLESS (SLS)</P>