Abstract: An electronic device, such as a digital camera, includes sensors to acquire subject data, such as an electro-optical image, as well as additional sensors to acquire meta-data such as temperature, humidity, the identification of the subject data, and the data and time. The electronic device further includes an image evaluator, to determine the best steganographic method to use to combine the meta-data and the subject data, and a steganographic engine, to combine the meta-data and the subject data in an undetectable manner. In this way, meta-data can be associated with the subject data when the subject data is acquired and in a manner that attaches the meta-data and the subject data without requiring generating and maintaining two, linked data sets.

Abstract: The system and method of the present invention comprises a compressed domain universal transcoder that transcodes a bit stream representing frames of data encoded according to an LPC coding standard to a bit stream representing frames of data according to a MELP coding standard. The method includes decoding a bit stream into a first set of parameters compatible with the LPC coding standard. Next, the LPC set of parameters are transformed into a MELP set of parameters compatible with the MELP coding standard without converting the LPC set of parameters to an analog or digital waveform representation. Lastly, the MELP set of parameters are encoded into a bit stream compatible with the MELP coding standard.