Data Hiding in H. 264 Encoded Video Sequences

A new method for high capacity data hiding in H.264 streams is presented. The proposed method takes advantage of the different block sizes used by the H.264 encoder during the inter prediction stage in order to hide the desirable data. It is a blind data hiding scheme, i.e. the message can be extracted directly from the encoded stream without the need of the original host video. This fragile data hiding approach can be mainly used for content-based authentication and covert communication.