Predictive audio coding using rate-distortion-optimal pre- and post-filtering

A natural approach to audio coding is to use a rate-distortion optimal design combined with a perceptual model. While this approach is common in transform coding, existing predictive-coding based audio coders are generally not optimal and they benefit from heuristically motivated post-filtering. As delay requirements often force the use of predictive coding, we consider audio coding with a pre- and post-filtered predictive structure that was recently proven to be asymptotically optimal in the rate-distortion sense [1]. We show that this audio coding is efficient in achieving the state-of-the-art performance. We also show that the pre-filter plays a relatively minor role. This leads to an analytic approach for optimizing the post-filter and the predictor at each rate, eliminating the need for manual re-tuning whenever a different rate is called for. In a subjective test, the theoretically optimized post-filter provided a better performance than a conventional post-filter.