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Efficient block-based transparent encryption for H.264/SVC bitstreams

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Abstract

Taking advantage of the inter-layer prediction technique used in H.264/scalable video coding (H.264/SVC), in this paper we propose an efficient block-based encryption scheme (BBES) for encrypting H.264/SVC enhancement layers (ELs). BBES operates in three modes, namely, Intra-MB mode, Group-MB mode and 4Group-MB mode. All the three modes are effective in securing ELs, preserve the “adaptation-transparent” property of H.264/SVC, and are format-compliant to the H.264/SVC bitstream format specifications. Moreover, Intra-MB and Group-MB modes also possess the property we termed as “transcoding transparency”. Experimental results indicate that BBES has low computational complexity and small compression overhead. Thus, BBES is suitable for transparent encryption of H.264/SVC bitstreams in which ELs are encrypted but base layers are left in cleartext.

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Notes

  1. Encoded H.264/SVC (QCIF) consists of base layer and an encrypted quality enhancement layer. Quantization parameters (QP) of base layer and enhancement layer are equal 40 and 30, respectively.

  2. Available at http://media.xiph.org/video/derf/.

  3. if the compared images are the same, the scores are 1.

  4. If the compared images are the same, the score are 0.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by A*STAR SERC Grant No. 102 101 0027 in Singapore.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Information Systems, Singapore Management University, Singapore, 178902, Singapore

    Robert Huijie Deng, Xuhua Ding & Zhuo Wei

  2. Institute for Infocomm Research, 1 Fusionopolis Way, Singapore, 138632, Singapore

    Yongdong Wu

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  1. Robert Huijie Deng
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  2. Xuhua Ding
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  3. Yongdong Wu
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  4. Zhuo Wei
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Correspondence to Zhuo Wei.

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Deng, R.H., Ding, X., Wu, Y. et al. Efficient block-based transparent encryption for H.264/SVC bitstreams. Multimedia Systems 20, 165–178 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00530-013-0326-0

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