ICSP'O4 Proceedings

A Digital Video Watermarking Method by associating with

the Motion Estimation

Yoshito Ueno
Graduate School of Engineering, SOKA University
1-236 Tangi Hchioj i Tokyo, 192-8577
ueiio@iss,soka.ac.jp
Abstracts: Th~spaper proposes a new digital method adopting the half-pixel change of motion
video watermarking method by associating with vectors themselves may decrease the quality of
~.. motion vectors of P-frame and inserting flag bits picture after embedding watermarks.
of watemrks into the macm block of the The watermarking method using wavelet
referred I-frame. According to the experimental transform has also poor quality of digital video.
results, the proposed methods are efficient in This paper describes a new cllgital video
t e m of irxcmse of watermark bits by 3 times watermarking method utilizing the duection of
more than that' of the method changing motion motion vectors without changing themsehies, but
vector itsetf by half pixel. And also the quality with inserting flag bits into the macro block of
of watermarked picture is very high with more I-frame by referring to the direction of motion
than 3Ydb in SNR and the extracted watennatk vectors of P-frame.
bits hith no error. Therefore, these watermarking
techniques are useful in digital video 2. The composition of digital video
watermarking. especially. for MPEG encoder. watermarking by referring to motion
vectors
1. Introduction The block diagram of a digital video
Recently. the Digital Watermarking technique is watermarlung by referring to motion vectors can
a powerful technology capable of solving
important practical security problems like
be realized as shown in Fig.! by partially
modifying the composition of the MPEG encoder.
.
Wakm&uJ Bit
authentication for copyright protection mfam
Today a wide variety of watemlarking -.
techniques for videos has already been proposed, (IPj7-f-
.
but they have some impairment of video quality
. and little tamper-proof characteristics.
Many digital video-watermarking methods have
been investigated by a large number of
researchers. [l]. [2], [3]
The ordinary digital video watermarking Concerning about this proposed method,

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 watennarking bits are directly embedded into the
niacro blocks of Y or Cb (Cr) component of
I-fmine b!, referring to {lie niotion vector n-lien
P - h “ has a inotion vector.
This watennarking method is performed by the
following inanner.
1) When the watermark bit is ‘. l’.. the Y pixel
value of macro block of I-frame that is referring
to a motion vector is cllanged into an even
number.
2) When the watennark bit is “0”. the Y pixel
value of imcro block of I-frame that is refemng
to a niotion vector is changed into an odd number.
And also we can embed the waternurk bits into
llie D.C coiuponent of qwmtiized value after the
DCT transfonnatian is pcrformed as shown in
doted line of Fig. 1.
Therefore. the inacro block of tlie following
component can be adopted as embedding
positions of watennark bits into the
of I-frame by referring to a motion vector.
I . Y component
2. Cb or Cr component
3. D.C component of the quantized value of Y
coinponenl after DCT transfonnation
4. D.Ccomponent uf the quantizcd value of Cb or
Cr component after DCT transfonnation
These embedded I-frames are replaced by the
original I-frames in tlie IBBP buffer and then the
watermarked out put stream are derived after
Variable Lengtll Coder (VLC) is applied to the
embedded I-fraiiie.
These iiietliods can be realized in real-time
processing using software very easily.
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3. Watermarking method using
Chain Cord
Fonii the point of view about real-time
processing by software. 8 directions of motion
vectors is represented into tlie octal fonn with
simpiicity.
The originally referred macro block of I-fmme is
divided into 8 regions on the basis of the direction
of motion vectors o f the macro blocks of F-frame
, ,
Watermark bits can be embedded into the
original inacro block of I-frame by referring to
motion vectors of P-frame as shown in Fig.2.
N frame N+3 frame
(Ifmme) ~ (Pfm;~ ~
Direaim of Flas
QLJ
0 PI bll
7 Directicri ofa
\
Otipuial mncm block
M
~
M \‘ccior
~
j
5
>
Pael of oinhdding B flag bit
Fig. 2 Embedding E Hag bit 5 by referring to the direction of
motion vectors using Chain code
I ~ C I T )block The algorithm of embedding watermark bits by
C h i n Code is described in the following steps
(1) Divide the referred macro block A of
I-frame into 8 regions having 16x16 pixels 011
tlie basis of the direction of niotion vector of
the macro block 33 of P-frame.
(2) Embed the 3 bits wateninrks into one of the 8
regions of inacro block of I-frame and also embed
a flag bit to disctiiizinate the embedding position
of watermark bits in 8 regions very easily.
(3) One of 8 directions for embedding a flag bit is
selected to be a position among (0---7) directions
clockwise by the direction of motion vectors.
(4)Let the walcnnark bits be W (i) = { O l O l l - - - j
As the octal Chain Code for embedding is
represented to be Wzin = { 101}, the watermark bit
is embedded into the “5” region of the original
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 macro block of I-frame.
(5) The embedding position of ma
co block uses
r tlie optimal block-based motion estimation is
the pisel of the inacro block that is on a constant
distance From the center of inacro block and
nearly lies on the line of the "5" direction on the
basis of thi: direction of the motion vector.
(6) After [he value of tlie specific pisel for the
embedding position is initialized into an even
nuniber. an odd number of a flag bit is embedded
when tlie watermark bit has an even number.
Then. the extraction algorithm of the enlbedded
nag bit having an odd value is described in the
following steps.
(1) Find ciut the embedding position of the flag
The traditional motion estimation method with
adopted.[4] In this block based motion estiniation
method. the searching area of block matching IS
esecuted within f 15 macro blocks.
The watermarking method using Cliain Code
algorithm is evaluated by using AVI video
(MPEG-1 format) that has 30 frames/sec.
32Ox240pixels, 24 bits color and 192 frames in
length. The sparse motion estimation method
adopts one macro block apart in order to avoid the
superposition of motion vectors.
The experimental results are shown in Table I.
Edddinp
FWllKM 1 AvmgcSNR AvmgtSNR EwmedPIImFalr
b e f m d s l d m g j Mlwtmbdddng/ d v l l a & i b * l l

bits among 8 directions from the reproduced Enkddddng in0 Y

cq4r(U 402Ldb 39.9Mb
I
opmx 3% 1
mra.iiis iM cb
macro blcick A of I-frame that are on a constant Carp" 46.611b 41Jldb qpmr. 2W.

distance froin the center of macro block and QvruialiUlPrvmptdY

u l a d d y hD 0 C M21& 39.3sdb U*
I
nearly lit: 011 the basis of the direction of Q u n l m i a P . n m k a r oCQ
E & & q inro 0 . C Mbl& 445m (ch
colp-
motion vcctors of P-frame.
(2) Search the flag bit having an odd value after
all flag bits are emacted from the 8 regions of the
macro blwk A.
(3) Dislinguish the embedded direction of this
flag bit 011 the basis of tlie direction of the motion
vector. such as 3" region
(4) Extiact the watermark bits, such as
Wem=: 1011 from this detected flag bit.
And also for the MPEG encoder we can easily
embed the watermark bits into the D.C
component of quantized ilalue of the mnacro block
of I-frame after DCT transformation by referring
to the motion vectors of P-frame as sanie as the
above nw:ntioned algorithm similarly.

4. Experimental results of chain

code watermarking method

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 I-frame after DCT transfonnation. After all. the
error mate of eh3racted watermark bits became 0%.
The actual embedded video fraiiie (AVI fonnat)
is shown in Fig.3 wliich picture qualily is better
rilan MF’EGI fonnal
imbhm h e o f l k mb4hdwarnnini;sihl ? L h m oFlh mibrddedvinermprlu
Fig. 5 The embedded watermark by refeming to motionvcctors
(AV1 Format. 192 Frames)
. The esperiniental’ rssults show tlmt the error
rate of extracted watermark bits becomes 0% due
to the accurate estraction of flag bits when the
flag bit is embedded into the D.C component of
quantized values of Y or Cb component in tie
macro block of I-fmme by referring to motion
vectors of P-frame.
5. Conclusion
Recendy. CPTWG (Copyright
Technical Working Group) has taken account of
standardization of DVD video concerning about
copyright protection inethod for video by
ciyptographs instead of watermarking methods.
For digital watennarking methods by referring to
the direction of motion vectors. two kinds of
methods by einbeddizig watenimrk bits into the
macro blocks of I-frame using Chain Code and
Binav Tree algorithms (the description o f this
subsection is omitted are proposed,
For adopting the chain code watermarking
method. rhe good quality of watennarked video
having 0% of the extracted error rate of
watennarked bits was derived.
These methods are effective to the watennarking
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techniques for MPEG video by partly changing
the construction of the ordinarv MPEG encoder
and decoder by means of software.
Final goal is to integrate the watermarking
tecl~niquesin the distributed video production and
distribution environments as the enabling
technologies for electronic commerce and for
digital market places to ensure copyrights for
videos.
Reference:
[I] EaKoch,J.Zhao: Towards Robust and Hidden
Image Copyright Labeling. Proc. of IEEE
Workshop on Nonlinear Signal and Image
Processing. June. 1995
121 J.Dittman. et al.: Robust MPEG Video
Watermarking technologies. Proc. of International
Conf. of Multimedia Sept. 1998
[3] CBush, et al.: “Digital Watermarking: Froin
Concepts to Real-Time Video Applications” IEEE
Protection Computer Graphics & Applications. JadFeb..
1999, p~ 25-35
[4]J.Veigh, et al.: ”A Software-based Red-Time
MPEG-2 Video Encoder” IEEE Trans..Circuit
and Systems for Video Technology. Vol.lO, N0.7. ,
Oct,, 2000, pp. 1178-1184
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