Variable bit rate adaptive predictive coder

An adaptive predictive coder providing almost toll quality at 16 kb/s and minimal degradation when the bit rate is lowered to 9.6 kb/s is described. The coder can operate at intermediate bit rates and can also change bit rate on a packet-by-packet basis. Variable bit rate operation is achieved through the use of switched quantization, thus eliminating the need for buffering of the output. A noise shaping filter provides flexible control of the output noise spectrum. The filter, in conjunction with an enhanced way to adapt the quantizer step size, which tries to accommodate the quantization noise feedback, accounts for the toll quality. By quantizing the residue with more than one quantizer, the effective number of bits per sample can be controlled in a deterministic way regardless of the entropy residue. The lower limit of operation is at 9.6 kb/s. Performance of the coder under random bit errors is also presented. It has been found that only at error rates of 10/sup -2/ and higher does the degradation becomes objectionable.< >