U.S. Philips Corporation

John F Sherry

Gerardus C Lokhoff

Franciscus A Kneepkens

Gustavus L Van Eijck

Systems, apparatus and methods for recording or reproducing from a re-recordable record carrier digital signals, representing a digital audio signal, containing information which results in concealment of a portion of a replica of the digital audio signal during its reproduction to prohibit audio distortions resulting from a boundary between two digital signals, wherein one of those digital signal is newly-recorded over a previously-recorded other digital signal. The concealment information can also be included in auxiliary signals recorded on reproduced from the record carrier along with the digital signals. In a recording apparatus, a digital signal including audio information (i.e., data-reduced samples of sub-band signals derived from sub-band coding a digital audio signal, and bit allocation information and scale factor information relating to the quantized samples) is provided with, via a signal processing unit, mutilated information or a concealment code (possibly included in an auxiliary signal instead) indicating that a portion of the replica of the digital audio signal is to be concealed during its reproduction, and then, recorded on a re-recordable record carrier. The reproducing apparatus acts, via a concealment control signal and a concealment unit, as a result of the mutilated information or the concealment code included in a digital signal (or auxiliary signal) read or received from a re-recordable record carrier, to conceal a portion of the replica of the digital audio signal during its reproduction. In embodiments in which concealment codes are used, a detector is included in the reproducing apparatus to detect the concealment code.

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Eindhoven, Netherlands

John F Sherry