Reversible Data Hiding Based on Run-Level Coding in H.264/AVC Video Streams

This paper presents a reversible data hiding (RDH) method, which is designed by combining histogram modification (HM) with run-level coding in H.264/advanced video coding (AVC). In this scheme, the run-level is changed for embedding data into H.264/AVC video sequences. In order to guarantee the reversibility of the proposed scheme, the last nonzero quantized discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficients in embeddable 4×4 blocks are shifted by the technology of histogram modification. The proposed scheme is realized after quantization and before entropy coding of H.264/AVC compression standard. Therefore, the embedded information can be correctly extracted at the decoding side. Peak-signal-noise-to-ratio (PSNR) and Structure similarity index (SSIM), embedding payload and bit-rate variation are exploited to measure the performance of the proposed scheme. Experimental results have shown that the proposed scheme leads to less SSIM variation and bit-rate increase.