A High-rate Data Hiding Technique for Audio Signals Based on Intmdct Quantization

Data hiding consists in hiding/embedding binary information within a signal in an imperceptible way. In this study we propose a high-rate data hiding technique suitable for uncompressed audio signals (PCM as used in Audio-CD and .wav format). This technique is appropriate for non-securitary applications, such as enriched-content applications, that require a large bitrate but no particular robustness to attacks. The proposed system is based on a quantization technique, the Quantization Index Modulation (QIM) applied on the Integer Modified Discrete Cosine Transform (IntMDCT) coefficients of the signal and guided by a PsychoAcoustic Model (PAM). This technique enables embedding bitrates up to 300 kbps (per channel), outperforming a previous version based on regular MDCT.