Abstract: The invention concerns a method and apparatus for embedding and detecting watermarks in a digital host signal. In the embedding method a watermark sequence of length Lw/N bits carrying predetermined information is generated and then up-sampled by a factor N (preferably N=2). At intermediate sampling points of the up-sampled sequence a modified version of the watermark sequence (in preferred arrangements the negative thereof) is inserted to form a compound watermark sequence of length Lw. The compound watermark sequence is then combined with the host signal to watermark the host signal. The invention finds particular advantage in that the need for a spectral whitening stage in the detector is done away with.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a methods, devices, a media signal as well as an information storage medium related to embedding additional data in a media signal. A first adding unit (12) mixes the media signal (x) with a noise signal (n) in order to provide a modified media signal (x+n), and a combiner unit (14) combines additional data (w) with the modified media signal (x+n) through multiplying the modified media signal with the additional data in order to provide a host modifying media signal (mw). In this way the additional data can be detected with a higher certainty in an output signal (y) if the media signal (x) includes few frequency components.

Abstract: A method of processing an information signal comprising: applying a signal modification process to an information signal resulting in a processed signal, said signal modification process being controlled by at least one control parameter; comparing the processed signal with the information signal to determine a measure of perceptual quality of the processed signal; and adjusting said at least one control parameter in response to the determined measure of perceptual quality. The method is advantageously used in watermarking and compression systems, that use a model of the Human Auditory or Visual System to control the watermark embedding depth or the compression ratio, and that often fail to maintain a constant signal quality because they ignore other artifacts than the mask-to-noise ratio.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus for processing a multimedia signal comprising a watermark signal are described. The method includes the steps of: removing at least a portion of the watermark signal, and adding a new watermark signal to the multimedia signal so as to form a new watermarked multimedia signal.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus for embedding a watermark in a multimedia signal and detecting the watermark, are described. The method comprises the steps of generating a watermark signal comprising a first sequence of values and a second sequence of values; obtaining a first signal portion corresponding to a first channel and a second signal portion corresponding to a second channel from the multimedia signal, said channels being significantly independent; generating a first host modifying signal as a mixture of the first signal portion and the first sequence; generating a second host modifying signal as a mixture of the second signal portion and the second sequence; and generating a watermarked multimedia signal by combining scaled versions of the host modifying signals with the multimedia signal.

Abstract: Method and apparatus are described for compensating for time offset in a received signal, so as to correctly align the frame sequence of a received signal to a sequence of transmitted symbols. Each symbol extends over Ts signal samples. The received signal is first divided into a sequence of frames of length Ts, and then each framedivided into a multiplicity of Nb sub-frames. Subsequently, Nb sequences of values are formed, where every successive value in each sequence is derived from the corresponding sub-frame within each successive frame. Each of the Nb sequences is an estimate for the correctly aligned sequence of transmitted symbols.

Abstract: A method of generating a watermark signal, embedding the watermark signal within a multimedia signal, and subsequently detecting the watermark signal is described. The watermark signal is the sum of two sequences of values, the second sequence of values being a circularly shifted version of the first sequence.

Abstract: A window shaping function is described which has an integral over the window shaping function of zero. Compared with conventional window shaping functions, this window shaping function improves the robustness of the watermark signal for a given quality of host signal. Methods and apparatus suitable for utilizing this window shaping function within a watermarking scheme are described.

Abstract: An audio encoding scheme or a stream that encodes audio and video data is disclosed. The scheme has particular application in mezzanine-level coding in digital television broadcasting. The scheme has a mean effective audio frame length F that equals the video frame length 1/fV over an integral number M video frames, by provision of audio frames variable in length F in a defined sequence where length=F(j) at encoding. The length of the audio frames may be varied by altering the length of overlap between adjacent frames in accordance with an algorithm that repeats after a sequence of M frames. An encoder and a decoder for such a scheme are also disclosed.