Media compression via data hiding

Data hiding procedures embed digital data in a host audio, image or video signal. The embedded data is perceptually and statistically invisible until extracted by the proper algorithm. In this paper we investigate the use of data hiding for media compression. We propose a media compression scheme which applies data hiding procedures to "fold" a media signal into itself. Specifically the media signal to be compressed is split into host and residual parts. The residual part is compressed and embedded into the host part. The host part is compressed with standard compression techniques and transmitted to the decoder. As a result, only part of the original signal is needed to be compressed, and the perceptual quality of the compressed signal is not sacrificed. Bit rate reduction by the proposed method is proportional to the redundancy and irrelevancy remaining in the compressed signal. The proposed scheme works since no current compression schemes can completely remove the redundancy and irrelevancy in a signal.