Watermark Embedding and Detection

TL;DR

This paper reviews watermarking techniques, explores optimal detection methods considering host signals, introduces a host-interference rejection technique, and proposes a double-sided embedding method to improve performance and perceptual quality.

Contribution

It presents a new host-interference rejection technique for spread spectrum watermarking and a double-sided embedding scheme that balances performance with perceptual constraints.

Findings

Host interference rejection significantly improves detection performance.

Performance depends on the shape parameter of host signals.

Double-sided technique enables maximum embedding without complex host interference rejection.

Abstract

The embedder and the detector (or decoder) are the two most important components of the digital watermarking systems. Thus in this work, we discuss how to design a better embedder and detector (or decoder). I first give a summary of the prospective applications of watermarking technology and major watermarking schemes in the literature. My review on the literature closely centers upon how the side information is exploited at both embedders and detectors. In Chapter 3, I explore the optimum detector or decoder according to a particular probability distribution of the host signals. We found that the performance of both multiplicative and additive spread spectrum schemes depends on the shape parameter of the host signals. For spread spectrum schemes, the performance of the detector or the decoder is reduced by the host interference. Thus I present a new host-interference rejection technique for the multiplicative spread spectrum schemes. Its embedding rule is tailored to the optimum detection or decoding rule. Though the host interference rejection schemes enjoy a big performance gain over the traditional spread spectrum schemes, their drawbacks that it is difficult for them to be implemented with the perceptual analysis to achieve the maximum allowable embedding level discourage their use in real scenarios. Thus, in the last chapters of this work, I introduce a double-sided technique to tackle this drawback. It differs from the host interference rejection schemes in that it utilizes but does not reject the host interference at its embedder. The perceptual analysis can be easily implemented in our scheme to achieve the maximum allowable level of embedding strength.