An efficient DCT-SBPM based video steganography in compressed domain

Abstract

In this research work, an efficient robust video steganography in compressed domain is presented based on discrete cosine transform (DCT) encoded with H.264 codec. In this method, a compressed video (.mp4) of different resolutions, frame rates and sizes are used as a cover and RGB image is used as a secret message. Using appropriate stego key, the secret frames from the sequence of video frames are selected and the non-dynamic pixels of these frames are identified. The least significant bits (LSB) of the DCT component of these non-dynamic pixels are used as carrier object for hiding the R, G, and B components of secret message individually. An appropriate embedding key is designed to embed secret message in cover video such that the quality assessment parameters viz. Peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and mean square error (MSE) of imperceptibility can be optimized. Also, the successful extraction of secret message from the cover stego video is assessed by the robustness parameters viz. Bit error rate (BER) and similarity (Sim). The hiding capacity of proposed video steganography with respect to secret message and cover frame is measured by using hiding ratio (HR). The efficiency of proposed video steganography method is compared with the reported methodologies on the basis of the parameters of imperceptibility and robustness.