Transmission of digital sound over channels with unforeseen bandwidth limitations

A new technique for encoding and decoding digital audio signals offers the advantage of a graceful degradation of the audio performance when the signal is conveyed over channels with a wide range of bandwidths. The flexibility of the new technique also provides a key to the future evolution of the quality of digital audio or video systems within the same digital format. The technique described may well be of particular value in applications involving the storage or broadcast of digital audio signals when the transmitter and receiver are ignorant of the exact bandwidth of the communication system.