Recorded video broadcast, streaming, download, and disk distribution with watermarking instructions

• US 20060133644A1
• Filed: 12/20/2004
• Published: 06/22/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/20/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Avago Technologies International Sales Pte Limited (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: LSI Corporation (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Linzer, Elliot N., Wells, Aaron G.
• Granted Patent: US 7,920,713 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3829 involving key management
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 19/018 Audio watermarking, i.e. embedding inaudible data in the audio signal
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 20/00086 Circuits for prevention of unauthorised reproduction or copying, e.g. piracy indicating unauthorised use of record carriers in general G11B23/28; scrambling for television signal recording H04N5/913; network architectures or network protocols for network security H04L63/00; cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for secret or secure communication H04L9/00
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 20/00884 involving a watermark, i.e. a barely perceptible transformation of the original data which can nevertheless be recognised by an algorithm
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2005/91335 the copy protection signal being a watermark
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23892 involving embedding information at multiplex stream level, e.g. embedding a watermark at packet level
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44008 involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in the video stream arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8358 involving watermark protecting executable software by watermarking G06F21/16; image watermarking in general G06T1/0021; watermarks inserted in still images for transmission purposes H04N1/32144; inserting watermarks during video coding H04N19/467
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/913 for scrambling ; for copy protection

Abstract

An apparatus comprising a first circuit and a second circuit. The first circuit may be configured to analyze an audio-video data stream to determine watermark appropriate information for the audio-video data stream. The second circuit may be configured to communicate the watermark appropriate information either in-band with or out-of-band from a bit stream communicating the audio-video data.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

a first circuit configured to analyze an audio-video data stream to determine watermark appropriate information for said audio-video data stream; and

a second circuit configured to communicate said watermark appropriate information either in-band with or out-of-band from a bit stream comprising said audio-video data.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said watermark appropriate information is communicated out-of-band in one or more of (i) one or more separate files on a medium communicating said audio-video data stream, (ii) a separate bit stream within the medium communicating said audio-video data stream, (iii) one or more separate communication channels, and (iv) one or more different communication media than said audio-video data stream.

3. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein analyzing said audio-video data stream comprises a spatial analysis.

4. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein analyzing said audio-video data stream comprises a temporal analysis.

5. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein analyzing said audio-video data comprises transform domain analysis.

6. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein analyzing said audio-video data stream comprises performing one or more analyses selected from the group consisting of spatial analysis, temporal analysis and transform domain analysis.

7. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said watermark appropriate information is determined according to a predetermined perceptual model.

8. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said second circuit is further configured to perform a frame-accurate conveyance of said watermark appropriate information.

9. The apparatus according to claim 8, wherein said second circuit is further configured to convey said result within the data to which said result pertains.

10. The apparatus according to claim 8, wherein said second circuit is further configured to convey said watermark appropriate information in either (i) one or more previous frames or (ii) one or more subsequent frames with respect to a frame to which said watermark appropriate information pertains.

11. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said watermark appropriate information comprises information for embedding a watermark during decoding of said bit stream.

12. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said watermark appropriate information comprises information for instructing a decoder to embed a watermark based on one or more conditions selected from the group consisting of per player, per download, per playback session and per user.

13. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said second circuit is further configured to communicate information regarding watermark strength and watermark creation embedded in said bit stream.

14. The apparatus according to claim 13, wherein said information regarding watermark strength and watermark creation comprises information regarding survivability and obtrusiveness.

15. The apparatus according to claim 14, wherein said information regarding survivability and obtrusiveness is customizable by a content owner on one or both of a per-content basis and a per-player basis.

16. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said bit stream is compliant with an encoding standard selected from the group consisting of MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV, VC-9, VC-1, H.262, H.263, H.264, H.264/JVC/AVC/MPEG-4 part 10, AVS 1.0, Real Networks, Divx Networks, Macromedia and other open or proprietary methods for compression of audio-video data.

17. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said audio-video data stream is not compressed and said result is stored or communicated with said audio-video data stream.

18. The apparatus according to claim 17, wherein said result is communicated via one of a vertical blanking interval (VBI), a horizontal blanking interval (HBI), a sub-picture unit (SPU), one or more chroma bits.

19. A method for watermarking audio-video data comprising the steps of:

performing one or more analyses selected from the group consisting of spatial analysis, temporal analysis and transform domain analysis, on said audio-video data; and

communicating a result of said one or more analyses either in-band with or out-of-band from a bit stream comprising said audio-video data.

20. The method according to claim 19, further comprising:

creating a watermark appropriate information database comprising watermark insertion meta data.

21. An apparatus for decoding a compressed bit stream comprising:

a first circuit configured (i) to detect watermark appropriate information communicated in-band with or out-of-band from an audio-video data bit stream and (ii) to extract said watermark appropriate information; and

a second circuit configured to embed one or more watermarks in said audio-video data based upon said watermark appropriate information.

22. The apparatus according to claim 21, wherein said apparatus is configured to perform any combination of functions selected from the group consisting of (i) optical disk player, (ii) broadcast receiver for any of digital broadcast satellite, digital cable and digital terrestrial, (iii) point-to-point streaming, (iv) point-to-point download and (v) non-volatile storage reader.

23. The apparatus according to claim 21, wherein said apparatus is configured to retrieve watermark insertion meta data from a database.

24. The apparatus according to claim 23, wherein said apparatus is configured to inspect a watermark overlay using information retrieved from said database.

25. A method for decoding a compressed bit stream comprising:

detecting watermark appropriate information communicated either in-band with or out-of-band from an audio-video data bit stream;

extracting said watermark appropriate information; and

embedding one or more watermarks in said audio-video data based on said watermark appropriate information.

26. The method according to claim 25, wherein said watermark appropriate information is communicated out-of-band in one or more of (i) one or more separate files on a medium communicating said audio-video data stream, (ii) a separate bit stream within the medium communicating said audio-video data stream, (iii) one or more separate communication channels, and (iv) one or more different communication media than said audio-video data stream.

27. The method according to claim 25, wherein said one or more watermarks are embedded based on one or more conditions selected from the group consisting of per player, per download, per playback session and per user.