Abstract
This paper proposes a novel audio watermarking scheme based on the discrete cosine transform (DCT) and Schur decomposition. The proposed scheme uses the DCT transformation to increase robustness and the Schur decomposition to achieve perceptual transparency. The proposed scheme first applies the DCT transformation to the original audio signal and then applies the Schur decomposition to the mid-frequency band of the DCT coefficients that generate two matrices (U and S). The watermark bits are embedded into the diagonal elements of the triangular matrix S. The Schur decomposition increases the perceptual transparency and the DCT transformation increases robustness of the proposed audio watermarking scheme by effectively resisting several types of audio signal attacks. The imperceptibility of the proposed watermarking scheme is measured subjectively using subjective difference grades (SDG) and objectively using signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and objective difference grades (ODG) metrics. Its robustness is evaluated against several types of attacks in terms of NC and BER for different types of audio. The resulting of payload capacity, SNR, NC, and BER are as high as 516.26 bps, 77.95, 0.05326, and 0.9727, respectively. Experimental results confirm the proposed scheme is efficient, imperceptible, and robust with a high payload capacity and no effecting audio signal.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Hu, H. T., Hsu, L. Y., & Chou, H. H. (2014). Perceptual-based DWPT–DCT framework for selective blind audio watermarking. Signal Processing, 105, 316–627. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sigpro.2014.05.003.
Peng, H., Li, B., Luo, X., Wang, J., & Zhang, Z. (2013). A learning-based audio watermarking scheme using kernel Fisher discriminant analysis. Digital Signal Processing, 23(1), 382–389. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsp.2012.08.006.
Hu, H. T., & Hsu, L. Y. (2015). Robust, transparent and high-capacity audio watermarking in DCT domain. Signal Processing, 109, 226–235. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sigpro.2014.11.011.
Liu, J., & She, K. (2012). A hybrid approach of DWT and DCT for rational dither modulation watermarking. Circuits Systems and Signal Processing, 31(2), 797–811. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00034-011-9331-8.
Tsai, H.-H., Cheng, J.-S., & Yu, P.-T. (2003). Audio watermarking based on HAS and neural networks in DCT domain. EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing, 2003(3), 252–263. https://doi.org/10.1155/S1110865703208027.
Dhar, P. K., & Shimamura, T. (2017). Blind audio watermarking in transform domain based on singular value decomposition and exponential-log operations. Radioengineering, 26(2), 552–561. https://doi.org/10.13164/re.2017.0552.
Hu, H. T., Chang, J. R., & Lin, S. J. (2018). Synchronous blind audio watermarking via shape configuration of sorted LWT coefficient magnitudes. Signal Processing, 147, 190–202. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sigpro.2018.02.001.
Tewari, T. K., Saxena, V., & Gupta, J. P. (2014). A digital audio watermarking scheme using selective mid band DCT coefficients and energy threshold. International Journal of Speech Technology, 17(4), 365–371. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10772-014-9234-8.
Al-Haj, A. (2014). An imperceptible and robust audio watermarking algorithm. EURASIP Journal on Audio, Speech, and Music Processing, 2014(37), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13636-014-0037-2.
Qasim, A. F., Meziane, F., & Aspin, R. (2018). Digital watermarking: Applicability for developing trust in medical imaging workflows state of the art review. Computer Science Review, 27, 45–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosrev.2017.11.003.
Bassia, P., Pitas, I., & Nikolaidis, N. (2001). Robust audio watermarking in the time domain. IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 3(2), 232–241.
Xiang, S., & Huang, J. (2007). Histogram-based audio watermarking against time-scale modification and cropping attacks. IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 9(7), 1357–1372.
Lie, W.-N., & Chang, L.-C. (2006). Robust and high-quality time-domain audio watermarking based on low-frequency amplitude modification. IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 8(1), 46–59.
Wang, H., Nishimura, R., Suzuki, Y., & Mao, L. (2008). Fuzzy self-adaptive digital audio watermarking based on time-spread echo hidinge. Applied Acoustics, 69(10), 868–874.
Aparna, J. R., & Ayyappan, S. (2014). Comparison of digital watermarking techniques department of computer science. In 2014 International conference on computation of power, energy, information and communication (ICCPEIC) (pp. 87–92). Chennai.
Singh, P., & Chadha, R. (2013). A survey of digital watermarking techniques, applications and attacks. International Journal of Engineering and Innovative Technology (IJEIT), 2(9), 165–175. https://doi.org/10.1109/INDIN.2005.1560462.
Kavadia, C., & Lodha, A. (2013). A review on spatial & transform domain digital watermarking techniques. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science, 4(3), 20–22.
Rajab, L., Al-khatib, T., & Al-haj, A. (2015). A blind DWT–Schur based digital video watermarking technique. Journal of Software Engineering and Applications, 8(1), 224–233.
Hu, H. T., & Hsu, L. Y. (2017). Incorporating spectral shaping filtering into DWT-based vector modulation to improve blind audio watermarking. Wireless Personal Communications, 94(2), 221–240. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-016-3178-z.
Lei, B., Soon, I. Y., & Tan, E. L. (2013). Robust SVD-based audio watermarking scheme with differential evolution optimization. IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing, 21(11), 2368–2378. https://doi.org/10.1109/TASL.2013.2277929.
Yoosuf, S., & Alex, A. M. (2015). Audio watermarking using colour image based on EMD and DCT. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer and Communication Engineering, 4(6), 363–367. https://doi.org/10.17148/IJARCCE.2015.4679.
Maha, C., Maher, E., Mohamed, K., & Chokri, B. A. (2010). DCT based blind audio watermarking scheme. In 2010 International conference on signal processing and multimedia applications (SIGMAP) (pp. 139–144). Athens, Greece.
Roy, S., Sarkar, N., Chowdhury, A. K., & Iqbal, S. M. A. (2015). An efficient and blind audio watermarking technique in DCT domain. In 2015 18th international conference on computer and information technology, ICCIT (pp. 362–367). Dhaka. https://doi.org/10.1109/iccitechn.2015.7488097.
Charfeddine, M., El’Arbi, M., & Amar, C. B. (2014). A new DCT audio watermarking scheme based on preliminary MP3 study. Multimedia Tools and Applications, 70(3), 1521–1557. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-012-1167-0.
Li, W., Xue, X., & Lu, P. (2006). Localized audio watermarking technique robust modification, against time-scale. IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 2(1), 60–69.
Tachibana, R., Shimizu, S., Kobayashi, S., & Nakamura, T. (2002). An audio watermarking method using a two-dimensional pseudo-random array. Signal Process, 82(10), 1455–1469.
Wang, X.-Y., Niu, P.-P., & Yang, H.-Y. (2009). A robust digital audio watermarking based on statistics characteristics. Pattern Recognition, 42(11), 3057–3064.
Wu, S., Huang, J., Huang, D., & Shi, Y. Q. (2005). Efficiently self-synchronized audio watermarking for assured audio data transmission. IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting, 51(1), 69–76.
Wang, X., Wang, P., Zhang, P., Xu, S., & Yang, H. (2013). Norm-space, aadaptive, and blind audio watermarking algorithm by discrete wavelet transform. Signal Processing, 93(4), 913–922.
Dhar, P. K., & Shimamura, T. (2015). Blind SVD-based audio watermarking using entropy and log-polar transformation. Journal of Information Security and Applications, 20, 74–83. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jisa.2014.10.007.
Bhat, V., Sengupta, K. I., & Das, A. (2010). An adaptive audio watermarking based on the singular value decomposition in the wavelet domain. Digital Signal Processing, 20(6), 1547–1558.
Lei, B., Soon, I. Y., Zhou, F., Li, Z., & Lei, H. (2012). A robust audio watermarking scheme based on lifting wavelet transform and singular value decomposition. Signal Processing, 92(9), 1985–2001.
Bansal, N., Bansal, A., Deolia, V., & Pathak, P. (2015). Comparative Analysis of LSB, DCT and DWT for Digital Watermarking. In 2nd international conference on computing for sustainable global development (INDIACom) (pp. 40–45). Mathura, India. https://doi.org/10.1109/eesco.2015.7253657.
Hu, H. T., & Hsu, L. Y. (2017). Supplementary schemes to enhance the performance of DWT-RDM-based blind audio watermarking. Circuits, Systems, and Signal Processing, 36(5), 1890–1911. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00034-016-0383-7.
Singh, D., & Singh, S. K. (2017). DWT-SVD and DCT based robust and blind watermarking scheme for copyright protection. Multimedia Tools and Applications, 76(11), 13001–13024. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-016-3706-6.
Roy, S., & Pal, A. K. (2017). A robust blind hybrid image watermarking scheme in RDWT–DCT domain using Arnold scrambling. Multimedia Tools and Applications, 76(3), 3577–3616. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-016-3902-4.
Abd El-Samie, F. E. (2009). An efficient singular value decomposition algorithm for digital audio watermarking. International Journal of Speech Technology, 12(1), 27–45. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10772-009-9056-2.
Hu, H. T., & Chang, J. R. (2017). Efficient and robust frame-synchronized blind audio watermarking by featuring multilevel DWT and DCT. Cluster Computing, 20(1), 805–816. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10586-017-0770-2.
Šego, V. (2014). The hyperbolic Schur decomposition. Linear Algebra and its Applications, 440(1), 90–110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.laa.2013.10.037.
Mohammad, A. A. (2012). A new digital image watermarking scheme based on Schur decomposition. Multimedia Tools and Applications, 59(3), 851–883. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-011-0772-7.
Su, Q., Niu, Y., Liu, X., & Zhu, Y. (2012). Embedding color watermarks in color images based on Schur decomposition. Optics Communications, 285(7), 1792–1802. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.optcom.2011.12.065.
Looperman Pro Audio Resources Community Forums, https://www.looperman.com. Accessed date: 15 July, 2017. (n.d.).
Kabal, P. (2003). An examination and interpretation of ITU-R BS. 1387: Perceptual evaluation of audio quality. Montreal: McGill University.
Subir, & Joshi, A. M. (2016). DWT-DCT based blind audio watermarking using Arnold scrambling and Cyclic codes. In 3rd international conference on signal processing and integrated networks (SPIN) (pp. 79–84). Noida. https://doi.org/10.1109/spin.2016.7566666.
Hsu, L. Y., & Hu, H. T. (2015). Blind image watermarking via exploitation of inter-block prediction and visibility threshold in DCT domain. Journal of Visual Communication and Image Representation, 32, 130–143. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvcir.2015.07.017.
Hu, H. T., Chen, S. H., & Hsu, L. Y. (2014). Incorporation of perceptually energy-compensated qim into dwt-dct based blind audio watermarking. In Proceedings—2014 10th international conference on intelligent information hiding and multimedia signal processing (pp. 748–752). Kitakyushu, Japan. https://doi.org/10.1109/iih-msp.2014.191.
Dong, L., Yan, Q., Lv, Y., & Deng, S. (2017). Full band watermarking in DCT domain with Weibull model. Multimedia Tools and Applications, 76(2), 1983–2000. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-015-3115-2.
Yang, Y., Lei, M., Liu, X., Qu, Z., & Wang, C. (2016). Novel zero-watermarking scheme based on DWT–DCT. China Communications, 13(7), 122–126.
Pattanshetti, P., Dongaonkar, S., & Karpe, S. (2015). Digital watermarking in audio using least significant bit and discrete cosine transform. International Journal of Computer Science and Information Technologies (IJCSIT), 6(4), 3688–3692.
Kaur, N., & Kaur, U. (2013). Audio watermarking using arnold transformation with DWT-DCT. International Journal of Computer Science Engineering (IJCSE), 2(6), 286–294.
Zhang, J. (2015). Audio dual watermarking scheme for copyright protection and content authentication. International Journal of Speech Technology, 18(3), 443–448. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10772-015-9287-3.
Deokar, S. M., & Dhaigude, B. (2015). Blind audio watermarking based on discrete wavelet and cosine transform. In 2015 international conference on industrial instrumentation and control (ICIC) (pp. 264–268). Pune. https://doi.org/10.1109/iic.2015.7150750.
Dutta, M. K., Gupta, P., & Pathak, V. K. (2014). A perceptible watermarking algorithm for audio signals. Multimedia Tools and Applications, 73(2), 691–713. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-011-0945-4.
Deb, K., Rahman, M. A., Sultana, K. Z., Sarker, M. I. H., & Chong, U.-P. (2014). DCT and DWT based robust audio watermarking scheme for copyright protection. The Journal of Korea Institute of Signal Processing and Systems, 15(1), 1–9.
Milaš, I., Radović, B., & Janković, D. (2016). A new audio watermarking method with optimal detection. In 5th Mediterranean conference on embedded computing (pp. 116–119). Bar. https://doi.org/10.1109/meco.2016.7525717.
Al-Haj, A. (2014). A dual transform audio watermarking algorithm. Multimedia Tools and Applications, 73(3), 1897–1912. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-013-1645-z.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Ethical approval
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Informed consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Karajeh, H., Maqableh, M. An imperceptible, robust, and high payload capacity audio watermarking scheme based on the DCT transformation and Schur decomposition. Analog Integr Circ Sig Process 99, 571–583 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10470-018-1332-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10470-018-1332-0