Selection of watermarks for the watermarking of compressed video

Abstract

A method comprises accessing changes which can be watermarks in a list for coded data, the changes having an syntax element, an original value and an candidate alternative value; determining for a subset a group of compliant changes from the changes, the complaint changes being compliant with a coding protocol such as a CABAC encoding protocol; and selecting for the subset only compliant changes that result in the subset having only one candidate alternative value for each syntax elements and result in only compliant changes also meeting at least one performance criterion. The method can include determining fidelity, recoverability, or robustness of the watermarks and removing or preventing watermarks from being in the subset based on the fidelity, recoverability, or robustness, wherein fidelity, recoverability, and robustness are performance criteria. The method can include determining at least two performance values for the watermarks, determining some collective metric of the at least two performance values, and removing or preventing watermarks from being in the subset based on the same collective metric.