Information hiding algorithm for H.264 based on the predition difference of intra_4×4

A scheme of information hiding for H.264 based on the prediction difference of intra_4 × 4 is proposed in this paper. According to this difference, the proposed algorithm first divided the intra_4 × 4 prediction modes (I4-modes) into two groups to form the rule of mapping between these modes and the bits to be hidden, and then modified the I4-modes by the rule of mapping to implement the hiding of information. By introducing the rate-distortion cost during the process of modulating, the proposed scheme achieved a better balance of rate-distortion, meanwhile, it had a smaller influence on the quality of video and the bit-rate of video. This scheme could detect the secret information rapidly, which meets the requirement of the real-time processing of video. Experimental results also demonstrate that it is a extremely effective scheme.