Sub-band coding: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 12:59, 20 March 2013

Revision as of 15:43, 26 August 2013

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==Basic principles==

The utility of SBC is perhaps best illustrated with a specific example. When used for audio compression, SBC exploits what[[auditory mightmasking]] be considered a deficiency ofin the [[human auditory system]]. Human ears are normally sensitive to a wide range of frequencies, but when a sufficiently loud signal is present at one frequency, the ear will not hear weaker signals at nearby frequencies. We say that the louder signal masks the softer ones. The louder signal is called the masker, and the point at which masking occurs is known, appropriately enough, as the masking threshold.

The basic idea of SBC is to enable a data reduction by discarding information about frequencies which are masked. The result differs from the original signal, but if the discarded information is chosen carefully, the difference will not be noticeable, or more importantly, objectionable.