Perceptual aspects in data hiding

In this paper, a new methodology for the secure embedding of data in a video sequence is presented. To guarantee the imperceptibility of the embedded data, we propose a novel method for selecting the frame regions that may be considered perceptually non relevant. For each frame of the video, a saliency analysis is performed based on features that are thought to be relevant to the Human Vision System. In particular, the local contrast, the color, and the motion information have been considered. By weighting all these features, an importance map is built to drive the embedding procedure. Subjective experiment results show that the artifacts caused by this localized embedding procedure are considered by the subjects to be less annoying than if the data hiding is performed on the whole frame. Nevertheless robustness is achieved.