A DWT based reversible watermarking for lossless recovery

A novel method for generic visible watermarking with a capability of lossless video recovery is proposed. The method is based on the use of deterministic one-to-one compound mappings of frame pixel values for overlaying a variety of visible watermarks of arbitrary sizes on cover videos. The compound mappings are proved to be reversible, which allows for lossless recovery of original video from watermarked video. The mappings may be adjusted to yield pixel values close to those of desired visible watermarks. The visible watermarks, the opaque monochrome watermark, are embedded as applications of the proposed generic approach. A DWT (Discrete Wavelet Transform) has been proposed to provide effective robustness for lossless recovery of video after applying DWT. Security protection measures by parameter and mapping randomizations have also been proposed to deter attackers on illicit image recoveries. Experimental results demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed approach are also included.