Abstract
This article proposes a new fragile watermarking scheme named bitโplane watermarking (BPW) which considers ways to improve coding efficiency whereas providing watermarking capability. Because of the use of the runโlength coding strategy for embedding watermark information, the BPW not only verifies the authenticity and integrity of video streams, but also can recompress the bit streams for improving the compression ratio. To verify the effectiveness of this new concept, we select the MPEGโ4 FGS as the platform for implementation. The watermark is embedded in the bitโplane blocks of MPEGโ4 FGS enhancement layer bitstream, and the coefficient in each bitโplane block is automatically selected so that the runโlength symbols can be reduced and the location of embedded bits is not required to memorize. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is demonstrated in a series of experimental simulations. It is shown that the scheme successfully detects changes made to the content of MPEGโ4 FGS video streams and identifies the specific location at which these changes have been made. Furthermore, the results show that the scheme can further reduce the length of compressed bit stream. ยฉ 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 18, 257โ264, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).