Data hiding in image and video: Part I--fundamental issues and solutions.

In this Part I of a two-part paper, we address a number of fundamental issues of data hiding in image and video and propose general solutions to them. We begin with a review of two major types of embedding, based on which we propose a new multilevel embedding framework to allow the amount of extractable data to be adaptive according to the actual noise condition. We then study the issues of hiding multiple bits through a comparison of various modulation and multiplexing techniques. Finally, the nonstationary nature of visual signals leads to highly uneven distribution of embedding capacity and causes difficulty in data hiding. We propose an adaptive solution switching between using constant embedding rate with shuffling and using variable embedding rate with embedded control bits. We verify the effectiveness of our proposed solutions through analysis and simulation. And Part II will apply these solutions to specific design problems for embedding data in grayscale and color images and video.