Systems and methods of preparing multiple video streams for assembly with digital watermarking

1. A method for preprocessing multimedia content into streams with watermark information, the method comprising:

receiving a source content media stream;

generating at least two variant preprocessed streams for each received source content media stream, where each variant preprocessed stream includes different watermark information in the same locations as the other variant preprocessed streams and where marked locations, having watermark information, are spaced apart at least a distance equal to a predetermined maximum segment size;

generating a set of embed location information describing marked locations in the variant preprocessed streams;

generating at least one variant output stream from each variant preprocessed stream using video compression, while encoding portions that are not marked only once for all streams rather than for each stream by utilizing the set of embed location information;

partitioning each variant output stream into a set of segments, where each segment is no longer than the predetermined maximum segment size and is marked with watermark information in at most one location and some segments do not have a mark;

generating a set of segment boundary information describing the boundaries of segments within the variant output streams and the boundaries are the same between variant output streams; and

generating a segment selection list using the set of embed location information and the set of segment boundary information, where the segment selection list includes only one variant segment for each segment according to a watermark sequence and the digits of the watermark sequence correspond to the watermark information applied to each variant preprocessed stream.

2. The process of claim 1 , further comprising generating a playlist from the segment selection list, where the playlist includes information enabling a playback device to retrieve watermarked content.

3. The process of claim 1 , further comprising generating a media file from the segment selection list, where the media file includes content segments marked in a manner corresponding to the watermark sequence of the segment selection list.

4. The process of claim 1 , wherein generating at least one variant output stream from each variant preprocessed stream using video compression includes generating a set of alternative streams from each variant preprocessed stream, where the alternative streams in each set differ in bitrate and the available bitrates in each set is the same.

5. The process of claim 1 , wherein generating at least one variant output stream from each variant preprocessed stream using video compression includes compressing segments that are not marked only once.

6. The process of claim 1 , wherein the watermark sequence is a binary representation of the different ways that the selected segments are marked.

7. The process of claim 1 , wherein the watermark sequence is generated from a transaction identifier associated with a purchase transaction.

8. The process of claim 7 , wherein the watermark sequence is also generated using a subscriber identifier associated with a user.