PC-based real-time watermark embedding system with standard video interface

An improved system is described for embedding watermarks into video frames in real time using software on an ordinary personal computer. It uses standard video I/O and is separate from the encoding process, so it can be incorporated into various encoding and distributing systems, which makes it well suited for distributing live content. Real-time processing is achieved by making a watermark-pattern generation process common to every frame a pre-process and shortening the watermark embedding time by reusing the watermark pattern output from this pre-process. It is also achieved by storing the watermarked video frames into the video memory on the video I/O board, thereby eliminating the need for storing them in buffers on hard disk. Testing of a prototype system demonstrated the validity of this approach.