A framework for MPEG-21 DIA based adaptation and perceptual encryption of H.264 video

Abstract

A ubiquitous computing concept permits end users to have access to multimedia and digital content anywhere, anytime and in any way they want. As a consequence, the importance of resource customization according to user preferences and device requirements set the primary challenge towards seamless access. Moreover, once a suitable customization approach has been decided (e.g. adaptation), deploying it in the existing network requires a generic and widely accepted standard applied to the process. With the advancement of time, performing encryption in the compressed domain should also be taken care of not only for serving sensitive digital contents but also for offering security as an embedded feature of the adaptation practice to ensure digital right management and confidentiality. In this paper, we present an architecture for temporal adaptation of ITU-T H.264 video conforming to ISO/IEC MPEG-21 DIA. In addition, we present a perceptual encryption scheme that is integrated in the system for video encryption. The framework enables video bitstreams to be adapted and encrypted in the compressed domain, eliminating cascaded adaptation (i.e. decodingadaptation -encoding). The encryption framework is applied on the adapted video content, which reduces computational overhead compared to that on the original content. A prototype, based on the proposed architecture and experimental evaluations of the system as well as its performance supporting the architecture are also presented.

Online adaptation for video sharing applications

“…The solution is good if there is some collaboration between peers before the streaming starts, but it is inconvenient for an isolated peer to initiate the streaming session and to place the video descriptions in different participating nodes. From our own experience in [1] and others' experience in [5], we can draw the conclusion that significant Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee.…”

“…We refer interested readers to [1] and [8] for details on the gBSD-based adaptation. Subsequently, we shall explain the overlay-formation action steps.…”

“…Therefore, we believe that distributing the workload to low-cost, off-the-shelve computing hosts such as personal computers (PC), one can eliminate the need for costly centralized adaptation and streaming servers. Our transcoding solution [1] using MPEG-21 generic Bitstream Syntax Description (gBSD) [2] does not require a dedicated media adaptation server; rather any intermediary node can adapt the video on the fly.…”

A Survey of H.264 AVC/SVC Encryption

“…2) Container-Formats: Several proposals [24], [23], [22] employ container formats and encrypt the H.264 bitstream or fractions of the H.264 bitstream with conventional algorithms, e.g., AES in counter mode. The basic setup is illustrated in figure 9.…”

Adaptation–aware encryption of scalable H.264/AVC video for content security

“…Video adaptation and encryption has been discussed together for encrypting adapted video contents only. The techniques proposed in [5], [6], [7] and [8] assume that either the content is received unencrypted or they are decrypted prior to performing the adaptation operation. Consequently, none of these techniques are fit for endto-end adaptation architectures.…”