Audio and Video Watermarking

Mr. Pirate

Joseph Huang & Weechoon Teo

 What is watermarking?

Permanent proof of originality for paper media.

Permanent proof of ownership for digital media.
Watermarking preserves intellectual property unlike encryption.
Watermarking is statistically and physically invisible (PRN).
Watermarking can be detected even after distortions.
Watermarking is done in the frequency, temporal, and/or spatial
domains.
 Audio Watermarking

Robustness:
Watermark has to be robust to signal manipulation.
Impossible to remove without significant alteration of the signal.
Statistically undetectable by others to prevent the efforts of unauthorized
removal.
Can be fulfilled if the potential number of keys that produce distinct
watermarks is large.
Detection scheme should be as statistically reliable as possible.
False rejection or acceptance of watermark should be minimal.
Audio Watermarking: A Temporal Method, p.1

Does not require original signal for the detection of

watermark.
Requires only a seed or key.
Watermark is embedded into the audio signal by
changing the least significant bits of the 16-bit or 8-bit
audio samples.
Results only in slight amplitude modification in the
time domain.
Audio Watermarking: A Temporal Method, p.2

Watermarked signal is formed by the following equation:

y (i ) x(i ) f ( x(i ), w(i ))

y(i) is the watermarked audio signal.

x(i) is the original audio signal.
w(i) is form from a random number generator.
f(x(i), w(i)) is a function that accounts for the basic audio masking properties.

S is defined as follows
N
S y (i ) w(i )
i 1
Audio Watermarking: A Temporal Method, p.3

The watermark detection value, r, is calculated by the equation below:

w
S S
r N
N
f ( y(i), w(i))w(i)
i 1

Theoretically r [0, 1], but due to estimation

of x(i) by y(i), r [0-e, 1+e].
A detection threshold of 0.5 can be used to
decide on the existence of audio watermark.
Figure on right shows the pdf for the value of
r in a non-watermarked and watermarked signal.
Both distributions have been calculated using
1000 different watermarks with SNR = 26.
 Audio Watermarking: Results, p.1

Detection values in a No significant shift in Requantization from

watermarked signal PDF after resampling 16-bit to 8-bit and back
using various seed (key from 44.1KHz to results in increase of
is 444). 11.025KHz and back deviation of PDF.
Only the correct key 100% success in Still achieve 99.8%
yields a value of r watermark detection accuracy in watermark
higher than threshold. after resampling detection.
 Audio Watermarking: Results, p.2

No significant shift Filtered by a moving 44.1 kHz signal

in PDF after MPEG3 average filter of length Low-pass filtered by a
Layer III 80kbs lossy 20 which introduces a 25th order Hamming
compression. noticeable audio LPF with cut-off at
distortion 22.05KHz.
Based on 0.5
threshold, still achieve Shift in mean and Shift in mean and
100% watermark variance but still variance but still
detection. results in 100% results in 100%
detection. detection.
 Video Watermarking

Issues on identical watermarks for each frame

Problems in maintaining statistical invisibility.
Issues on independent watermarks for each frame
Problems in easy removal of watermarks.
Robustness:
Must survive frame averaging, frame dropping, frame
swapping, cropping, temporal rescaling.
Must be able to discern imposter watermarks (deadlock).
Problems in use of the original video sequence. Problems
when no video sequence is needed.
 Video Watermarking: Deadlocking

Detection and Generation of Pseudorandom Sequence

Original sequence is present for comparisons, but what about imposters?
Possible solution: Public/Private Key Pseudorandom Generator
Embedded Watermark for added authorization

Public Key PRN

Private Key
Real Original Watermark Watermarked
Embedded
Supplied by author
 Video Watermarking: A Method, p.1

Temporal Wavelet Transform yields:

1) Low-pass frames (Static, non-moving component)
2) High-pass frames (Dynamic, moving component)
Frequency and Spatial Masking are tuned to human visual perception.

Spatial
Masking

Temporal Extract Frequency

WT Blocks
DCT
Masking
X IDCT X

Video Frames Wavelet Frames DCT

Author signature
+

Watermark block
 Video Watermarking: A Method, p.2

Detection of Watermark
With knowledge of location in video sequence
X = input, R = received coeffs, F = original coeffs, N = noise, W = watermark

H0: Xk = Rk - Fk = Nk (No watermark)

H1: Xk = Rk - Fk = Wk + Nk (Watermark)
Without knowledge of location in video sequence (just one frame present)
Only look at the low-pass frames (static, non-moving component)
X k Wk
Decision thresholds are determined by a scalar similarity S
Wk Wk
Typical results
Video Similarity results after Printing and Scanning
Frame With watermark Without watermark
Pingpong 0.734 0.011
Football 0.611 0.052
 References

P. Bassia and I. Pitas, Robust Audio Watermarking in the Time Domain. Dept. of
Informatics, University of Thessaloniki.
Jian Zhao, Look, Its Not There. BYTE Magazine - January 1997.
M. Swanson, B. Zhu, and A. Twefik, Multiresolution Scene-Based Video
Watermarking Using Perceptual Models. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in
Communications, IEEE 1998.
 Answer to Questions, p.1

How is the key embedded into the watermarked

signal, y(i)?
y (i ) x(i ) f ( x(i ), w(i ))
The figure on the right
shows how y(i) is generated.

The key is a unique code for an authors identification. This unique code is used to
generate a maximum length Pseudo-random Noise sequence. This PN sequence is then used
to generate the watermark signal w(i) as show in the diagram above. Thus the key is really
utilized by the function w(i).
A masking threshold for the audio signal can be generated using MPEG Audio
Psychoacoustic Model 1. The PN sequence generated by the key is then filtered with the
masking filter M(w) to ensure that the spectrum of the watermark is below the masking
threshold. This ensures that the watermark is inaudible after embedding into the signal.
 Answer to Questions, p.2

What does statistically undetectable mean?

How do we make a watermark statistically undetectable?

By statistically undetectable, we mean that a pirate is unable to detect the watermark

simply by generating the whole set of all possible watermarks. In other word the possibility
of a pirate correctly guessing the right key is close to zero. This is to ensure that a pirate is
unable to remove or claim ownership for the watermark in the audio signal.
The condition for statistically undetectable is simply fulfilled by having a huge set of
keys that will generate distinct watermarks. This will result in statistical safety for the
watermarked audio signal.