CABAC Video Watermark Selection via Syntax Element Evaluation
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing digital watermarking techniques for CABAC video streams often interfere with the viewing experience and are not effective against piracy, as they fail to balance detectability, recoverability, and embeddability while maintaining compliance with coding standards.
Innovation Solution
A method that identifies changeable syntax elements in CABAC video streams, evaluates their detectability, recoverability, and embeddability, and generates a list of compliant changes that balance fidelity, robustness, and capacity, using propagation maps to assess the impact of changes across blocks, ensuring that only suitable changes are embedded, thereby maintaining video quality and effectiveness.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If digital watermarking is applied to CABAC video streams using conventional techniques, then watermark detectability is improved, but video quality deteriorates due to visible artifacts
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the parameter space by evaluating multiple candidate syntax element modifications with different detectability and visibility characteristics. Instead of applying a single watermarking method, the system generates a list of candidate changes and selects the optimal one that maximizes detectability while minimizing visible artifacts, thereby resolving the contradiction between reliability and harmful factors.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary evaluation of candidate syntax element changes before actual watermark embedding. By pre-assessing detectability, recoverability, embeddability, and visibility impact of each candidate, the system selects the best option in advance, ensuring high detectability while avoiding visible artifacts in the final watermarked video.
2Reliability
If multiple watermarking changes are applied to enhance robustness against piracy, then watermark robustness is improved, but coding standard compliance becomes more difficult to maintain
Solution Approach 1:
The patent systematically evaluates multiple candidate syntax element modifications, each with different robustness and compliance characteristics. By generating a ranked list of candidates and selecting the optimal one, the system achieves high robustness while maintaining CABAC coding standard compliance, resolving the contradiction between reliability and device complexity.
3Reliability
If syntax elements are modified for watermark embedding, then watermark capacity is improved, but video fidelity deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent evaluates multiple candidate syntax element changes with varying capacity and fidelity impacts. By selecting the optimal candidate from the generated list based on balanced criteria including both capacity and fidelity metrics, the system achieves high watermark capacity while preserving video quality, resolving the contradiction between reliability and manufacturing precision.
Data Source
AI summary
A method comprises accessing changes which can be watermarks in a list for coded data, the changes having an syntax element, an original value and an candidate alternative value; determining for a subset a group of compliant changes from the changes, the complaint changes being compliant with a coding protocol such as a CABAC encoding protocol; and selecting for the subset only compliant changes that result in the subset having only one candidate alternative value for each syntax elements and result in only compliant changes also meeting at least one performance criterion. The method can include determining fidelity, recoverability, or robustness of the watermarks and removing or preventing watermarks from being in the subset based on the fidelity, recoverability, or robustness, wherein fidelity, recoverability, and robustness are performance criteria. The method can include determining at least two performance values for the watermarks, determining some collective metric of the at least two performance values, and removing or preventing watermarks from being in the subset based on the same collective metric.