Digital watermarking of low bit rate video

• US 8,638,978 B2
• Filed: 07/28/2009
• Issued: 01/28/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 01/22/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Digimarc Corporation
• Original Assignee: Digimarc Corporation
• Inventors: Alattar, Adnan M., Lin, Eugene T., Celik, Mehmet U.
• Primary Examiner(s): TUCKER, WESLEY J
• Application Number:
  US12/510,983
• Publication Number:
  US 20100128921A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,645 Days
• Field of Search: 382/100, 382235-253
• US Class Current: 382/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/0064 Geometric transfor invariant watermarking, e.g. affine transform invariant
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/0071 using multiple or alternating watermarks
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/0085 Time domain based watermarking, e.g. watermarks spread over several images
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2201/0051 Embedding of the watermark in the spatial domain
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2201/0052 Embedding of the watermark in the frequency domain
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2201/0061 Embedding of the watermark in each block of the image, e.g. segmented watermarking
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2201/0065 Extraction of an embedded watermark; Reliable detection
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2201/0601 whereby calibration information is embedded in the watermark, e.g. a grid, a scale, a list of transformations

Abstract

Methods for embedding digital watermarks in compressed video include perceptual adapting a digital watermark in predicted and non-predicted data based on block activity derived from the compressed video stream, embedding in predicted objects in a video stream having separately compressed video objects, and bit rate control of watermarked video.

Claims

1. A method for embedding a digital watermark in a compressed video stream, the method comprising:

receiving a compressed video stream;

extracting prediction information from the compressed video stream, the prediction information including motion vectors;

computing a strength of an adaptive watermark signal based on the prediction information; and

embedding the adaptive watermark signal with the computed strength into the compressed video stream.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the adaptive watermark signal is embedded in transform domain coefficients extracted from the compressed video stream.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the strength of the adaptive watermark signal is computed based on quantization indexes of the transform domain coefficients and the prediction information.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the strength of the adaptive watermark signal is computed based on an activity estimate of the transform domain coefficients and the prediction information.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the strength of the adaptive watermark signal is computed based on an activity estimate of the transform domain coefficients, based on the quantization indexes, and based on the prediction information.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the prediction information includes spatial prediction information from the compressed video stream.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the prediction information includes temporal prediction information from the compressed video stream.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the prediction information includes temporal and spatial prediction information from the compressed video stream.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the prediction information is extracted without decompressing a majority of the compressed video signal.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the prediction information facilitates prediction of a distortion effect caused by watermarking, and wherein the strength of the adaptive watermark signal limits the distortion effect.

9. A non-transitory computer-readable medium on which is stored instructions, wherein the instructions comprise:

instructions to receive a compressed video stream;

instructions to extract prediction information from the compressed video stream, wherein the prediction information includes motion vectors;

instructions to compute a strength of an adaptive watermark signal based on the prediction information; and

instructions to embed the adaptive watermark signal with the computed strength into the compressed video stream.