An object oriented generic audio coding architecture

The motivation of this paper is to try to define a framework for object-oriented audio coding, aimed at the development of the challenging idea of a generic coding architecture for audio signals. The inherent flexibility associated with the object-oriented approach allows one to foresee a possible combination of audio and video coding aspects when moving towards multimedia applications. This topic is addressed in the set of requirements of ISO/MPEG4. The MAVT (CSELT-BOSCH-MATRA) audio candidate for ISO/MPEG4 develops this idea mainly by the design of a flexible bit manipulation unit, capable of producing a variety of manipulated bit streams in respect to bit rate, level, and audio object selection. All of these with a unique flexible decoder algorithm.