Format independent encryption of generalized scalable bit-streams enabling arbitrary secure adaptations [multimedia communication applications]

Secure format-independent adaptation of bit-streams during delivery is becoming increasingly important to cope with content piracy while still accommodating diverse networks, terminals and formats. Generalized scalable bit-streams are particularly advantageous in this regard, since they enable a variety of efficient and secure adaptations. Further, by associating such a bit-stream with appropriate metadata, such as those standardized in MPEG-21 Part 7, entitled digital item adaptation (DIA), the adaptation process can be fully format-independent. In this paper, to maximally secure a generalized scalable bit-stream while allowing arbitrary encrypted domain adaptations, strong progressive encryption methods are extended to multiple dimensions. Further it is shown that by appropriate modeling of such bit-streams and re-use of some DIA descriptions, the encryption and decryption engines themselves can be entirely metadata-driven and format-independent. This leads to end-to-end format-independent secure and adaptive delivery architectures for scalable bit-streams.