Audio watermarking
View Patent ↗A system, including a processor to define opportunities for encoding a watermark into an audio stream having sections, each section, when represented in the frequency domain, including a signal of amplitude against frequency, the processor being operative to, for each one of the sections, identify a fundamental frequency, f being the frequency with the largest amplitude of the signal in the one section, the fundamental frequency f defining harmonic frequencies, each harmonic frequency being at a frequency f/2n or 2fn, n being a positive integer, and define the one section as an opportunity for encoding at least part of the watermark if the amplitude of the signal of the one section is less than a value v for all frequencies in one or more different frequency ranges, each of the different frequency ranges being centered around different ones of the harmonic frequencies. Related apparatus and methods are also described.
1. A system, comprising a processor to define a plurality of opportunities for encoding a watermark into an audio stream, the audio stream having a plurality of sections, each of the sections, when represented in the frequency domain, including a signal of amplitude against frequency, the processor being operative to, for each one of the sections of the audio stream:
identify a fundamental frequency, f, of the one section, the fundamental frequency being the frequency with the largest amplitude of the signal in the one section, the fundamental frequency f defining a plurality of harmonic frequencies, each of the harmonic frequencies being at a frequency f/2n or 2fn, n being a positive integer; and
define the one section as an opportunity for encoding at least part of the watermark if the amplitude of the signal of the one section is less than a value v for all frequencies in one or more of a plurality of different frequency ranges, each of the different frequency ranges being centered around different ones of the harmonic frequencies.
2. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the value v is less than, or equal to, 25% of the amplitude of the signal at the fundamental frequency of the one section.
3. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the size of each of the different frequency ranges is equal to 6% of the frequency at the center of each of the different frequency ranges, respectively.
4. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the harmonic frequencies are within a range of frequencies from 20 Hertz to 20,000 Hertz.
5. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the processor is operative to prepare data for transmission to another device, the data including: the audio stream formatted in the frequency domain or in the time domain; and information identifying the defined opportunities.
6. The system according to claim 5 , further comprising transmission equipment to transmit the data to the other device.
7. The system according to claim 5 , wherein the processor is operative to prepare the data to include, for each one of the sections of the audio stream defined as one of the opportunities: timing information of the one section; the amplitude of the signal at the fundamental frequency of the one section; the one or more different ones of the harmonic frequencies of the one section.
8. The system according to claim 5 , wherein the processor is operative to prepare the data to include data defining pairs of the sections which have been defined as one of the opportunities for encoding the watermark.
9. The system according to claim 1 , further comprising a watermark encoder to encode the watermark into the audio stream, the encoding including adding audio to at least some of the sections defined as the encoding opportunities, the added audio being added such that for each one of the defined sections, the added audio is added somewhere in: each of the different frequency ranges; or in one of the different frequency ranges.
10. The system according to claim 9 , wherein the added audio has a maximum amplitude equal to 25% of the amplitude of the signal at the fundamental frequency of the one section.
11. A method, comprising:
defining a plurality of opportunities for encoding a watermark into an audio stream, the audio stream having a plurality of sections, each of the sections, when represented in the frequency domain, including a signal of amplitude against frequency; and
for each one of the sections of the audio stream:
identifying a fundamental frequency, f, of the one section, the fundamental frequency being the frequency with the largest amplitude of the signal in the one section, the fundamental frequency f defining a plurality of harmonic frequencies, each of the harmonic frequencies being at a frequency f/2n or 2fn, n being a positive integer; and
defining the one section as an opportunity for encoding at least part of the watermark if the amplitude of the signal of the one section is less than a value v for all frequencies in one or more of a plurality of different frequency ranges, each of the different frequency ranges being centered around different ones of the harmonic frequencies.