VOCODER AND ASSOCIATED METHOD THAT TRANSCODES BETWEEN MIXED EXCITATION LINEAR PREDICTION (MELP) VOCODERS WITH DIFFERENT SPEECH FRAME RATES

A vocoder and method transcodes Mixed Excitation Linear Prediction (MELP) encoded data for use at different speech frame rates. Input data is converted into MELP parameters such as used by a first MELP vocoder. These parameters are buffered and a time interpolation is performed on the parameters with quantization to predict spaced points. An encoding function is performed on the interpolated data as a block to produce a reduction in bit-rate as used by a second MELP vocoder at a different speech frame rate than the first MELP vocoder.