Digital watermarks

1. A method comprising:

encoding, using an electronic processor, content with a plural-bit digital watermark in accordance with initial encoding parameters to yield an encoded content;

transforming the encoded content to yield a transformed encoded content;

reverse transforming the transformed encoded content to yield a reverse transformed encoded content;

determining an assessment of the encoded plural-bit digital watermark in each of two or more portions of the reverse transformed encoded content;

for each of the two or more portions of the content, adjusting at least one of the initial encoding parameters according to the assessment for a respective portion of the content; and

encoding the content with the plural-bit watermark in accordance with the at least one adjusted encoding parameter.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein each of the portions of the content comprises two or more bits of the plural-bit digital watermark.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the content comprises audio or video.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the assessment comprises a signal to noise ratio.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the assessment corresponds to a robustness of a portion of the digital watermark encoded in a respective portion of the content.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the robustness corresponds to two or more bits of the plural-bit digital watermark.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the assessment corresponds to an encoding strength or signal strength.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the two or more portions each comprises transform domain values or coefficients.

9. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions stored thereon to cause an electronic processor to perform the method of claim 1 .

10. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions stored thereon to cause an electronic processor to perform the method of claim 5 .

11. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions stored thereon to cause an electronic processor to perform the method of claim 6 .

12. An electronic apparatus programmed to perform the method of claim 1 .

13. An electronic apparatus programmed to perform the method of claim 5 .

14. An electronic apparatus programmed to perform the method of claim 6 .

15. A method comprising:

obtaining a first content item from a batch of N content items, where N comprises an integer;

embedding, using an electronic processor, watermark information in the first content item to yield a watermarked first content item;

transforming the watermarked first content item, yielding a transformed watermarked first content item;

reverse transforming the transformed watermarked first content item to yield a reverse transformed watermarked first content item;

determining one or more parameters based on the reverse transformed watermarked first content item;

utilizing the one or more parameters to inform a subsequent embedding process; and

embedding watermarks in the second to N content items with the informed subsequent embedding process.

16. The method of claim 15 , wherein the N content items comprise audio or video.

17. The method of claim 15 , wherein the watermarks comprise plural-bit data.

18. The method of claim 15 , wherein the act of transforming comprises compression.

19. The method of claim 15 , wherein the one or more parameters correspond to signal intensity.

20. The method of claim 15 , wherein the N content items comprise audio-visual works.

21. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions stored thereon to cause an electronic processor to perform the method of claim 15 .

22. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions stored thereon to cause an electronic processor to perform the method of claim 19 .

23. An electronic apparatus programmed to perform the method of claim 15 .

24. An electronic apparatus programmed to perform the method of claim 19 .

25. A method comprising:

obtaining data corresponding to user input, the user input relating to data transformation;

encoding, using an electronic processor, information in content to yield an encoded content;

transforming the encoded content with reference to at least the data to yield a transformed encoded content;

reverse transforming the transformed encoded content to yield a reverse transformed encoded content;

analyzing the reverse transformed encoded content; and

based at least in part on the analyzing, determining whether to encode the information in the content under different encoding conditions.

26. The method of claim 25 , wherein the content comprises audio or video.

27. The method of claim 25 , wherein the information comprises plural-bits.

28. The method of claim 25 , wherein the user input indicates a relative level of transformation.

29. The method of claim 25 , wherein the act of analyzing determines a relative strength of the encoding within the content.

30. The method of claim 25 , wherein the act of encoding acts upon transform domain coefficients.