Embedding visible video watermarks in the compressed domain

Abstract

Digital visible or invisible watermarks are increasingly in demand for protecting or verifying the original image or video ownership. We propose a novel compressed-domain approach to embedding visible watermarks in MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video streams. Our algorithms operate on the DCT coefficients which are obtained with minimal parsing of input video. The embedded watermarks adapt to the local video features such as brightness and complexity to achieve consistent perceptual visibility. The embedded watermarks are robust against attempts of removal since clear artifacts remain after the possible attacks.