Spread spectrum-based video watermarking algorithms for copyright protection

Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/2263 on 14.03.2017 by CS (TIS)Digital technologies know an unprecedented expansion in the last years. The consumer can now benefit from hardware and software which was considered state-of-the-art several years ago. The advantages offered by the digital technologies are major but the same digital technology opens the door for unlimited piracy. Copying an analogue VCR tape was certainly possible and relatively easy, in spite of various forms of protection, but due to the analogue environment, the subsequent copies had an inherent loss in quality. This was a natural way of limiting the multiple copying of a video material. With digital technology, this barrier disappears, being possible to make as many copies as desired, without any loss in quality whatsoever. Digital watermarking is one of the best available tools for fighting this threat. The aim of the present work was to develop a digital watermarking system compliant with the recommendations drawn by the EBU, for video broadcast monitoring. Since the watermark can be inserted in either spatial domain or transform domain, this aspect was investigated and led to the conclusion that wavelet transform is one of the best solutions available. Since watermarking is not an easy task, especially considering the robustness under various attacks several techniques were employed in order to increase the capacity/robustness of the system: spread-spectrum and modulation techniques to cast the watermark, powerful error correction to protect the mark, human visual models to insert a robust mark and to ensure its invisibility. The combination of these methods led to a major improvement, but yet the system wasn't robust to several important geometrical attacks. In order to achieve this last milestone, the system uses two distinct watermarks: a spatial domain reference watermark and the main watermark embedded in the wavelet domain. By using this reference watermark and techniques specific to image registration, the system is able to determine the parameters of the attack and revert it. Once the attack was reverted, the main watermark is recovered. The final result is a high capacity, blind DWr-based video watermarking system, robust to a wide range of attacks.BBC Research & Developmen

Anomalous Scale Dimensions from Timelike Braiding

Using the previously gained insight about the particle/field relation in conformal quantum field theories which required interactions to be related to the existence of particle-like states associated with fields of anomalous scaling dimensions, we set out to construct a classification theory for the spectra of anomalous dimensions. Starting from the old observations on conformal superselection sectors related to the anomalous dimensions via the phases which appear in the spectral decomposition of the center of the conformal covering group $Z(\widetilde{SO(d,2)}),$ we explore the possibility of a timelike braiding structure consistent with the timelike ordering which refines and explains the central decomposition. We regard this as a preparatory step in a new construction attempt of interacting conformal quantum field theories in D=4 spacetime dimensions. Other ideas of constructions based on the $AdS_{5}$-$CQFT_{4}$ or the perturbative SYM approach in their relation to the present idea are briefly mentioned.Comment: completely revised, updated and shortened replacement, 24 pages tcilatex, 3 latexcad figure

The dual of Janus -:- an interface CFT

We propose and study a specific gauge theory dual of the smooth, non-supersymmetric (and apparently stable) Janus solution of Type IIB supergravity found in hep-th/0304129. The dual field theory is N=4 SYM theory on two half-spaces separated by a planar interface with different coupling constants in each half-space. We assume that the position dependent coupling multiplies the operator L' which is the fourth descendent of the primary Tr(X^I X^J) and closely related to the N=4 Lagrangian density. At the classical level supersymmetry is broken explicitly, but SO(3,2) conformal symmetry is preserved. We use conformal perturbation theory to study various correlation functions to first and second order in the discontinuity of g^2_{YM}, confirming quantum level conformal symmetry. Certain quantities such as the vacuum expectation value are protected to all orders in g^2_{YM}N, and we find perfect agreement between the weak coupling value in the gauge theory and the strong coupling gravity result. SO(3,2) symmetry requires vanishing vacuum energy, =0, and this is confirmed in first order in the discontinuity.Comment: 24 pages, 1 figure; references adde

An efficient error resilience scheme based on wyner-ziv coding for region-of-Interest protection of wavelet based video transmission

In this paper, we propose a bandwidth efficient error resilience scheme for wavelet based video transmission over wireless channel by introducing an additional Wyner-Ziv (WZ) stream to protect region of interest (ROI) in a frame. In the proposed architecture, the main video stream is compressed by a generic wavelet domain coding structure and passed through the error prone channel without any protection. Meanwhile, the predefined ROI area related wavelet coefficients obtained after an integer wavelet transform will be specially protected by WZ codec in an additional channel during transmission. At the decoder side, the error-prone ROI related wavelet coefficients will be used as side information to help decoding the WZ stream. Different size of WZ bit streams can be applied in order to meet different bandwidth condition and different requirement of end users. The simulation results clearly revealed that the proposed scheme has distinct advantages in saving bandwidth comparing with fully applied FEC algorithm to whole video stream and in the meantime offer the robust transmission over error prone channel for certain video applications

PC-SEAPAK user's guide, version 4.0

PC-SEAPAK is designed to provide a complete and affordable capability for processing and analysis of NOAA Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) and Nimbus-7 Coastal Zone Color Scanner (CZCS) data. Since the release of version 3.0 over a year ago, significant revisions were made to the AVHRR and CZCS programs and to the statistical data analysis module, and a number of new programs were added. This new version has 114 procedures listed in its menus. The package continues to emphasize user-friendliness and interactive data analysis. Additionally, because the scientific goals of the ocean color research being conducted have shifted to larger space and time scales, batch processing capabilities were enhanced, allowing large quantities of data to be easily ingested and analyzed. The development of PC-SEAPAK was paralled by two other activities that were influential and assistive: the global CZCS processing effort at GSFC and the continued development of VAX-SEAPAK. SEAPAK incorporates the instrument calibration and support all levels of data available from the CZCS archive