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AppleGranted patentAudio & voiceInterest 4/10

Apple patents audio coding method for sharper sound details

Patent drawing
Patent drawing from the official filing.

Apple has been granted a patent for a method to compress audio files by focusing on sudden, sharp sounds known as transients. The system breaks audio into small chunks, converts them into frequency data, and organizes this data to better capture the shape of the sound's energy.

Why it mattersThis improves how digital audio handles quick sounds like drum hits, potentially making music and videos sound more natural on Apple devices.

In the filing’s own words

Aspects of the present disclosure provide improved techniques for coding audio signal with a transient audio sound. Improved techniques include parsing a frame of predetermined length of audio samples into a series of windows of a smaller size, and transforming the windows of time-domain samples into a series of windows of frequency-domain samples. The frequency-domain samples may be organized according to an alignment pattern and may be coded with respect to an envelope of the organized frequency-domain samples.

What exactly they claim (claim 1)

1. An audio encoding method, comprising: parsing a sequence of audio samples contained within a frame of a predetermined size into a plurality of windows of smaller size; transforming the audio samples in the windows into respective sets of frequency-domain coefficients, estimating a spectral envelope of the frame by: arranging the frequency-domain coefficients of the windows according to an alignment pattern in which a lowest-frequency coefficient of one window is placed adjacent to a lowest frequency coefficient of its neighboring window and a highest frequency coefficient of another window is placed adjacent to a highest frequency coefficient of its neighboring window, and estimating the spectral envelope of the frame from the frequency-domain coefficients arranged according to the alignment pattern; coding the audio samples of the frame with reference to the spectral envelope of the frame; and transmitting the coded audio samples to a channel.

Facts

Company
Apple (APPLE INC.)
Official title
Efficient coding of transients in transform-domain
Patent number
US12770630B2
Application number
18624865
Filed
Apr 2, 2024
Granted
Oct 20, 2026
Inventors
2
Claims
21

Classified under

G10L 19/022 Physics & computingG10L 19/038 Physics & computing
Read the full filing (official PDF) ↗ Open in the Patent Tracker

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Summaries are simplified from the filing’s own abstract and first claim. A patent filing is not a product announcement.
Patent data and drawings: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Nebula is not affiliated with or endorsed by the USPTO.