Use of rough image analysis in smartphone application for video watermark detection

A method has been developed for detecting watermarks in displayed video content using a smart phone. The computational load involved in processing a full-size image is reduced by using Gaussian filtering to analyze the complexity of the image regions. Watermarks are assumed to be embedded in those regions with higher complexity. Each region is then checked for watermarks in descending order of complexity. Quick and reliable watermark detection is achieved by adjusting the number of checked regions so that the calculation speed matches device-hardware performance. System testing demonstrated that the developed method is practical to some degree for maintaining image quality and providing watermark robustness.