A Prediction Mode-Based Information Hiding Approach for H.264/AVC Videos Minimizing the Impacts on Rate-Distortion Optimization

In this paper, with the data representation named intra prediction mode (IPM), an effective data hiding approach, called MIRO, integrated with H.264/AVC compression is proposed. The main principle is to minimize the embedding impacts on the video coding efficiency. First, a novel distortion function of individual IPM is designed reflecting its impact on Rate-Distortion Optimization. Secondly, the embedding structure based on syndrome-trellis codes (STCs) and interleaved sub-lattices are leveraged to minimize the overall embedding distortion. Comparative experimental results have demonstrated that, with similar embedding rates, the proposed method has much lower impacts on coding efficiency (both on the visual quality and compression efficiency) compared to other schemes.