Frame-based forensic watermarking: what is it and how does it work?

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Digital watermarking is the process of securely and undetectably encoding a key-dependent signal within digital data. In contrast to certain watermarking techniques, others use 3D transformations to incorporate watermarks.

Watermarking a sequence of still photos is the most common method of digital video watermarking in use today. Video frames are encoded with forensic watermark information using frame-based watermarking techniques. Watermarks can be recovered from a video segment in the event of content leakage or attacks, such as re-compression, geometrical deformations adding noise, etc. Watermarks can be injected into each video frame, or they can be inserted into all of the video frames using the same embedding strategy. It is possible for attackers to group frames with the same watermark and undertake WER attacks by repeating the same watermark sequence.

Watermarking is typically done as part of a transcoder, whether it’s an SDK or a command-line programme running on its own. The watermarking SDK provides an interactive video frame-based data interface that simplifies asset management while decreasing the watermarking process’ performance requirements. Video frames from a variety of sources, including  DRM protected content and live television, must first be decoded using transcoding. After converting each frame into an RGB format and feeding it into the SDK, each frame is returned as a pixelated watermark with the same picture specifications (width/height/pixel format) as the original frame. Finally, the transcoder creates the final media file from the watermarked video frame. Once the transcoder receives the SDK’s return pixel format, the data may be transformed into its final form.

It is much easier to insert and remove video watermarks using frame-based forensic watermarking techniques. Using just a few frames from the movie for extraction is also a big advantage for these tools. By securely embedding information that can be recovered in the case of a breach or leak, frame-based watermarking techniques can offer an additional degree of protection to DRM-protected content.

If you’re using dynamic watermarking, you may embed information on the video asset while it’s being played back at the user’s end, such as the user’s email, date and time of watching, their IP address, or even their business logo. Because of their dynamic nature, they provide additional protection for confidential content that is not intended to be shared or altered. DAI (dynamic ad insertion) is also activated via dynamic watermarking in order to optimise addressable ad income. DRM video protection techniques such as watermarks are not sufficient on their own, but when used in conjunction with other measures, they can help to safeguard the intellectual property of the content owner and aid to trace the source of any alleged infringement. They also serve as a helpful reminder to users about their own and others’ rights to the content they’re using.