The disclosed subject matter relates to video coding and decoding, and more specifically, to an SEI message carrying a copyright statement, license, or other copyright-related information pertaining to a video stream or parts thereof.
Video coding and decoding using inter-picture prediction with motion compensation has been known for decades. Uncompressed digital video can consist of a series of pictures, each picture having a spatial dimension of, for example, 1920×1080 luminance samples and associated chrominance samples. The series of pictures can have a fixed or variable picture rate (informally also known as frame rate), of, for example 60 pictures per second or 60 Hz. Uncompressed video has significant bitrate requirements. For example, 1080p60 4:2:0 video at 8 bit per sample (1920×1080 luminance sample resolution at 60 Hz frame rate) requires close to 1.5 Gbit/s bandwidth. An hour of such video requires more than 600 GByte of storage space.
One purpose of video coding and decoding can be the reduction of redundancy in the input video signal, through compression. Compression can help reducing aforementioned bandwidth or storage space requirements, in some cases by two orders of magnitude or more. Both lossless and lossy compression, as well as a combination thereof can be employed. Lossless compression refers to techniques where an exact copy of the original signal can be reconstructed from the compressed original signal. When using lossy compression, the reconstructed signal may not be identical to the original signal, but the distortion between original and reconstructed signal is small enough to make the reconstructed signal useful for the intended application. In the case of video, lossy compression is widely employed. The amount of distortion tolerated depends on the application; for example, users of certain consumer streaming applications may tolerate higher distortion than users of television contribution applications. The compression ratio achievable can reflect that: higher allowable/tolerable distortion can yield higher compression ratios.
A video encoder and decoder can utilize techniques from several broad categories, including, for example, motion compensation, transform, quantization, and entropy coding, some of which will be described below.
ITU-T Rec H.263 Annex W includes a “Picture Message” SEI message, which allows for a free-form text to be carried in the SEI. MTYPE 2 in that message can be indicative of copyright-related content. That message, as specified, has certain disadvantages: a) it is specified only for the H.263 syntax, b) the scope of the text message (current picture, coded video sequence, . . . is undefined, c) the message is de-facto limited to only 27 characters as the extension mechanism of the H.263 Annex W message is known to have an error.
There is included a method and apparatus comprising memory configured to store computer program code and a processor or processors configured to access the computer program code and operate as instructed by the computer program code. The computer program is configured to cause the processor implement obtaining code configured to cause the at least one processor to obtain video data comprising at least one coded picture; identifying code configured to cause the at least one processor to identify, by a decoder, at least one first supplementary information enhancement (SEI) message, the at least one first SEI message indicating copyright information of the at least one coded picture; and decoding code configured to cause the at least one processor to decode, by the decoder, the video data based on the first SEI message.
The copyright information indicates a copyright owner of the at least one coded picture.
The copyright information indicates any of a string or an integer indicative of a year of creation of a copyright for the at least one coded picture.
The video data comprises at least one other coded picture, and the copyright information indicated by the at least one first SEI message does not apply to the at least one other coded picture.
The at least one other coded picture represents an advertisement spliced between content of the video data, and wherein the at least one coded picture represents a picture of the content of the video data
The video data comprises at least one second SEI message indicating second copyright information of the at least one other coded picture.
The second copyright information may be different than the copyright information.
Further features, nature, and various advantages of the disclosed subject matter will be more apparent from the following detailed description and the accompanying drawings in which:
The disclosed subject matter related to video decoding and more specifically to a copyright information Supplementary Enhancement Information message. Code, in a coded video bitstream, information about copyright of at least one picture in the coded video bitstream. Avoid the shortcomings of the message SEI message in H.263 Annex W.
The proposed features discussed below may be used separately or combined in any order. Further, the embodiments may be implemented by processing circuitry (e.g., one or more processors or one or more integrated circuits). In one example, the one or more processors execute a program that is stored in a non-transitory computer-readable medium.
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A streaming system may include a capture subsystem 203, that can include a video source 201, for example a digital camera, creating, for example, an uncompressed video sample stream 213. That sample stream 213 may be emphasized as a high data volume when compared to encoded video bitstreams and can be processed by an encoder 202 coupled to the video source 201, which may be for example a camera as discussed above. The encoder 202 can include hardware, software, or a combination thereof to enable or implement aspects of the disclosed subject matter as described in more detail below. The encoded video bitstream 204, which may be emphasized as a lower data volume when compared to the sample stream, can be stored on a streaming server 205 for future use. One or more streaming clients 212 and 207 can access the streaming server 205 to retrieve copies 208 and 206 of the encoded video bitstream 204. A client 212 can include a video decoder 211 which decodes the incoming copy of the encoded video bitstream 208 and creates an outgoing video sample stream 210 that can be rendered on a display 209 or other rendering device (not depicted). In some streaming systems, the video bitstreams 204, 206 and 208 can be encoded according to certain video coding/compression standards. Examples of those standards are noted above and described further herein. Examples of those standards include ITU-T Recommendations H.265 and H.266. The disclosed subject matter may be used in the context of VVC.
A receiver 302 may receive one or more codec video sequences to be decoded by the decoder 300; in the same or another embodiment, one coded video sequence at a time, where the decoding of each coded video sequence is independent from other coded video sequences. The coded video sequence may be received from a channel 301, which may be a hardware/software link to a storage device which stores the encoded video data. The receiver 302 may receive the encoded video data with other data, for example, coded audio data and/or ancillary data streams, that may be forwarded to their respective using entities (not depicted). The receiver 302 may separate the coded video sequence from the other data. To combat network jitter, a buffer memory 303 may be coupled in between receiver 302 and entropy decoder/parser 304 (“parser” henceforth). When receiver 302 is receiving data from a store/forward device of sufficient bandwidth and controllability, or from an isosychronous network, the buffer 303 may not be needed, or can be small. For use on best effort packet networks such as the Internet, the buffer 303 may be required, can be comparatively large and can advantageously of adaptive size.
The video decoder 300 may include a parser 304 to reconstruct symbols 313 from the entropy coded video sequence. Categories of those symbols include information used to manage operation of the decoder 300, and potentially information to control a rendering device such as a display 312 that is not an integral part of the decoder but can be coupled to it. The control information for the rendering device(s) may be in the form of Supplementary Enhancement Information (SEI messages) or Video Usability Information (VUI) parameter set fragments (not depicted). The parser 304 may parse/entropy-decode the coded video sequence received. The coding of the coded video sequence can be in accordance with a video coding technology or standard, and can follow principles well known to a person skilled in the art, including variable length coding, Huffman coding, arithmetic coding with or without context sensitivity, and so forth. The parser 304 may extract from the coded video sequence, a set of subgroup parameters for at least one of the subgroups of pixels in the video decoder, based upon at least one parameters corresponding to the group. Subgroups can include Groups of Pictures (GOPs), pictures, tiles, slices, macroblocks, Coding Units (CUs), blocks, Transform Units (TUs), Prediction Units (PUs) and so forth. The entropy decoder/parser may also extract from the coded video sequence information such as transform coefficients, quantizer parameter values, motion vectors, and so forth.
The parser 304 may perform entropy decoding/parsing operation on the video sequence received from the buffer 303, so to create symbols 313. The parser 304 may receive encoded data, and selectively decode particular symbols 313. Further, the parser 304 may determine whether the particular symbols 313 are to be provided to a Motion Compensation Prediction unit 306, a scaler/inverse transform unit 305, an Intra Prediction Unit 307, or a loop filter 311.
Reconstruction of the symbols 313 can involve multiple different units depending on the type of the coded video picture or parts thereof (such as: inter and intra picture, inter and intra block), and other factors. Which units are involved, and how, can be controlled by the subgroup control information that was parsed from the coded video sequence by the parser 304. The flow of such subgroup control information between the parser 304 and the multiple units below is not depicted for clarity.
Beyond the functional blocks already mentioned, decoder 300 can be conceptually subdivided into a number of functional units as described below. In a practical implementation operating under commercial constraints, many of these units interact closely with each other and can, at least partly, be integrated into each other. However, for the purpose of describing the disclosed subject matter, the conceptual subdivision into the functional units below is appropriate.
A first unit is the scaler/inverse transform unit 305. The scaler/inverse transform unit 305 receives quantized transform coefficient as well as control information, including which transform to use, block size, quantization factor, quantization scaling matrices, etc. as symbol(s) 313 from the parser 304. It can output blocks comprising sample values, that can be input into aggregator 310.
In some cases, the output samples of the scaler/inverse transform 305 can pertain to an intra coded block; that is: a block that is not using predictive information from previously reconstructed pictures, but can use predictive information from previously reconstructed parts of the current picture. Such predictive information can be provided by an intra picture prediction unit 307. In some cases, the intra picture prediction unit 307 generates a block of the same size and shape of the block under reconstruction, using surrounding already reconstructed information fetched from the current (partly reconstructed) picture 309. The aggregator 310, in some cases, adds, on a per sample basis, the prediction information the intra prediction unit 307 has generated to the output sample information as provided by the scaler/inverse transform unit 305.
In other cases, the output samples of the scaler/inverse transform unit 305 can pertain to an inter coded, and potentially motion compensated block. In such a case, a Motion Compensation Prediction unit 306 can access reference picture memory 308 to fetch samples used for prediction. After motion compensating the fetched samples in accordance with the symbols 313 pertaining to the block, these samples can be added by the aggregator 310 to the output of the scaler/inverse transform unit (in this case called the residual samples or residual signal) so to generate output sample information. The addresses within the reference picture memory form where the motion compensation unit fetches prediction samples can be controlled by motion vectors, available to the motion compensation unit in the form of symbols 313 that can have, for example X, Y, and reference picture components. Motion compensation also can include interpolation of sample values as fetched from the reference picture memory when sub-sample exact motion vectors are in use, motion vector prediction mechanisms, and so forth.
The output samples of the aggregator 310 can be subject to various loop filtering techniques in the loop filter unit 311. Video compression technologies can include in-loop filter technologies that are controlled by parameters included in the coded video bitstream and made available to the loop filter unit 311 as symbols 313 from the parser 304, but can also be responsive to meta-information obtained during the decoding of previous (in decoding order) parts of the coded picture or coded video sequence, as well as responsive to previously reconstructed and loop-filtered sample values.
The output of the loop filter unit 311 can be a sample stream that can be output to the render device 312 as well as stored in the reference picture memory 557 for use in future inter-picture prediction.
Certain coded pictures, once fully reconstructed, can be used as reference pictures for future prediction. Once a coded picture is fully reconstructed and the coded picture has been identified as a reference picture (by, for example, parser 304), the current reference picture 309 can become part of the reference picture buffer 308, and a fresh current picture memory can be reallocated before commencing the reconstruction of the following coded picture.
The video decoder 300 may perform decoding operations according to a predetermined video compression technology that may be documented in a standard, such as ITU-T Rec. H.266. The coded video sequence may conform to a syntax specified by the video compression technology or standard being used, in the sense that it adheres to the syntax of the video compression technology or standard, as specified in the video compression technology document or standard and specifically in the profiles document therein. Also necessary for compliance can be that the complexity of the coded video sequence is within bounds as defined by the level of the video compression technology or standard. In some cases, levels restrict the maximum picture size, maximum frame rate, maximum reconstruction sample rate (measured in, for example megasamples per second), maximum reference picture size, and so on. Limits set by levels can, in some cases, be further restricted through Hypothetical Reference Decoder (HRD) specifications and metadata for HRD buffer management signaled in the coded video sequence.
In an embodiment, the receiver 302 may receive additional (redundant) data with the encoded video. The additional data may be included as part of the coded video sequence(s). The additional data may be used by the video decoder 300 to properly decode the data and/or to more accurately reconstruct the original video data. Additional data can be in the form of, for example, temporal, spatial, or signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) enhancement layers, redundant slices, redundant pictures, forward error correction codes, and so on.
The encoder 400 may receive video samples from a video source 401 (that is not part of the encoder) that may capture video image(s) to be coded by the encoder 400.
The video source 401 may provide the source video sequence to be coded by the encoder (303) in the form of a digital video sample stream that can be of any suitable bit depth (for example: 8 bit, 10 bit, 12 bit, . . . ), any colorspace (for example, BT.601 Y CrCB, RGB, . . . ) and any suitable sampling structure (for example Y CrCb 4:2:0, Y CrCb 4:4:4). In a media serving system, the video source 401 may be a storage device storing previously prepared video. In a videoconferencing system, the video source 401 may be a camera that captures local image information as a video sequence. Video data may be provided as a plurality of individual pictures that impart motion when viewed in sequence. The pictures themselves may be organized as a spatial array of pixels, wherein each pixel can comprise one or more samples depending on the sampling structure, color space, etc. in use. A person skilled in the art can readily understand the relationship between pixels and samples. The description below focuses on samples.
According to an embodiment, the encoder 400 may code and compress the pictures of the source video sequence into a coded video sequence 410 in real time or under any other time constraints as required by the application. Enforcing appropriate coding speed is one function of Controller 402. Controller controls other functional units as described below and is functionally coupled to these units. The coupling is not depicted for clarity. Parameters set by controller can include rate control related parameters (picture skip, quantizer, lambda value of rate-distortion optimization techniques, . . . ), picture size, group of pictures (GOP) layout, maximum motion vector search range, and so forth. A person skilled in the art can readily identify other functions of controller 402 as they may pertain to video encoder 400 optimized for a certain system design.
Some video encoders operate in what a person skilled in the art readily recognizes as a “coding loop.” As an oversimplified description, a coding loop can consist of the encoding part of an encoder 400 (“source coder” henceforth) (responsible for creating symbols based on an input picture to be coded, and a reference picture(s)), and a (local) decoder 406 embedded in the encoder 400 that reconstructs the symbols to create the sample data that a (remote) decoder also would create (as any compression between symbols and coded video bitstream is lossless in the video compression technologies considered in the disclosed subject matter). That reconstructed sample stream is input to the reference picture memory 405. As the decoding of a symbol stream leads to bit-exact results independent of decoder location (local or remote), the reference picture buffer content is also bit exact between local encoder and remote encoder. In other words, the prediction part of an encoder “sees” as reference picture samples exactly the same sample values as a decoder would “see” when using prediction during decoding. This fundamental principle of reference picture synchronicity (and resulting drift, if synchronicity cannot be maintained, for example because of channel errors) is well known to a person skilled in the art.
The operation of the “local” decoder 406 can be the same as of a “remote” decoder 300, which has already been described in detail above in conjunction with
An observation that can be made at this point is that any decoder technology except the parsing/entropy decoding that is present in a decoder also necessarily needs to be present, in substantially identical functional form, in a corresponding encoder. The description of encoder technologies can be abbreviated as they are the inverse of the comprehensively described decoder technologies. Only in certain areas a more detail description is required and provided below.
As part of its operation, the source coder 403 may perform motion compensated predictive coding, which codes an input frame predictively with reference to one or more previously-coded frames from the video sequence that were designated as “reference frames.” In this manner, the coding engine 407 codes differences between pixel blocks of an input frame and pixel blocks of reference frame(s) that may be selected as prediction reference(s) to the input frame.
The local video decoder 406 may decode coded video data of frames that may be designated as reference frames, based on symbols created by the source coder 403. Operations of the coding engine 407 may advantageously be lossy processes. When the coded video data may be decoded at a video decoder (not shown in
The predictor 404 may perform prediction searches for the coding engine 407. That is, for a new frame to be coded, the predictor 404 may search the reference picture memory 405 for sample data (as candidate reference pixel blocks) or certain metadata such as reference picture motion vectors, block shapes, and so on, that may serve as an appropriate prediction reference for the new pictures. The predictor 404 may operate on a sample block-by-pixel block basis to find appropriate prediction references. In some cases, as determined by search results obtained by the predictor 404, an input picture may have prediction references drawn from multiple reference pictures stored in the reference picture memory 405.
The controller 402 may manage coding operations of the source coder 403, which may be for example a video coder, including, for example, setting of parameters and subgroup parameters used for encoding the video data.
Output of all aforementioned functional units may be subjected to entropy coding in the entropy coder 408. The entropy coder translates the symbols as generated by the various functional units into a coded video sequence, by loss-less compressing the symbols according to technologies known to a person skilled in the art as, for example Huffman coding, variable length coding, arithmetic coding, and so forth.
The transmitter 409 may buffer the coded video sequence(s) as created by the entropy coder 408 to prepare it for transmission via a communication channel 411, which may be a hardware/software link to a storage device which would store the encoded video data. The transmitter 409 may merge coded video data from the source coder 403 with other data to be transmitted, for example, coded audio data and/or ancillary data streams (sources not shown).
The controller 402 may manage operation of the encoder 400. During coding, the controller 402 may assign to each coded picture a certain coded picture type, which may affect the coding techniques that may be applied to the respective picture. For example, pictures often may be assigned as one of the following frame types:
An Intra Picture (I picture) may be one that may be coded and decoded without using any other frame in the sequence as a source of prediction. Some video codecs allow for different types of Intra pictures, including, for example Independent Decoder Refresh Pictures. A person skilled in the art is aware of those variants of I pictures and their respective applications and features.
A Predictive picture (P picture) may be one that may be coded and decoded using intra prediction or inter prediction using at most one motion vector and reference index to predict the sample values of each block.
A Bi-directionally Predictive Picture (B Picture) may be one that may be coded and decoded using intra prediction or inter prediction using at most two motion vectors and reference indices to predict the sample values of each block. Similarly, multiple-predictive pictures can use more than two reference pictures and associated metadata for the reconstruction of a single block.
Source pictures commonly may be subdivided spatially into a plurality of sample blocks (for example, blocks of 4×4, 8×8, 4×8, or 16×16 samples each) and coded on a block-by-block basis. Blocks may be coded predictively with reference to other (already coded) blocks as determined by the coding assignment applied to the blocks' respective pictures. For example, blocks of I pictures may be coded non-predictively or they may be coded predictively with reference to already coded blocks of the same picture (spatial prediction or intra prediction). Pixel blocks of P pictures may be coded non-predictively, via spatial prediction or via temporal prediction with reference to one previously coded reference pictures. Blocks of B pictures may be coded non-predictively, via spatial prediction or via temporal prediction with reference to one or two previously coded reference pictures.
The encoder 400, which may be for example a video coder, may perform coding operations according to a predetermined video coding technology or standard, such as ITU-T Rec. H.266. In its operation, the encoder 400 may perform various compression operations, including predictive coding operations that exploit temporal and spatial redundancies in the input video sequence. The coded video data, therefore, may conform to a syntax specified by the video coding technology or standard being used.
In an embodiment, the transmitter 409 may transmit additional data with the encoded video. The source coder 403 may include such data as part of the coded video sequence. Additional data may comprise temporal/spatial/SNR enhancement layers, other forms of redundant data such as redundant pictures and slices, Supplementary Enhancement Information (SEI) messages, Visual Usability Information (VUI) parameter set fragments, and so on.
Compressed video can be augmented, in the video bitstream, by supplementary enhancement information, for example in the form of Supplementary Enhancement Information (SEI) Messages or Video Usability Information (VUI). Video coding standards can include specifications parts for SEI and VUI. SEI and VUI information may also be specified in stand-alone specifications that may be referenced by the video coding specifications.
Referring to the example 500 of
A coded picture may contain one or more Video Coding Layer (VCL) NAL units and zero or more non-VCL NAL units. VCL NAL units may contain coded data conceptually belonging to a video coding layer as introduced before. Non-VCL NAL units may contain data conceptually belonging data not conceptually belonging to the video coding layer. Using H.266 as an example, they can be categorized into (1) Parameter sets, (2) Picture Header (PH_NUT), (3) NAL units, (4) Prefix and Suffix SEI Nal unit types (PREFIX_SEI_NUT and SUFFIX_SEI_NUT), (5) Filler Data NAL unit type FD_NUT, and (6) Reserved and Unspecified NAL unit types, as follows.
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The coded picture 511 can contain, in the depicted order or any other order compliant with the video coding technology or standard in use (here: H.266): a Prefix APS 516, Picture header (PH) 517, prefix SEI 518, one or more VCL NAL units 519, and suffix SEI 520.
Prefix and suffix SEI NAL units 518 and 520 were motivated during the standards development as, for some SEI messages, the content of the message would be known before the coding of a given picture commences, whereas other content would only be known once the picture were coded. Allowing certain SEI messages to appear early or late in a coded picture's NAL unit stream through prefix and suffix SEIs allows avoiding buffering. As one example, in an encoder the sampling time of a picture to be coded is known before the picture is coded, and hence the picture timing SEI message can be a prefix SEI message 516. On the other hand, a decoded picture hash SEI message, which contains a hash of the sample values of a decoded pictures and can be useful, for example, to debug encoder implementations, is a suffix SEI message 518 as an encoder cannot calculate a hash over reconstructed samples before a picture has been coded. The location of Prefix and Suffix SEI NAL units may not be restricted to their position in the NAL unit stream. The phrase “Prefix” and “Suffix” may imply to what coded pictures or NAL units the Prefix/Suffix SEI message may pertain to, and the details of this applicability may be specified, for example in the semantics description of a given SEI message.
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Coded video can be created from uncompressed source video, which can be the original work of authorship with at least a minimal degree of creativity and hence can be covered by copyright. It is often advisable to mark such content with information related to the owner of the copyright and possibly certain licensing information. Such information is henceforth called “copyright information”.
In video, copyright information can be included in a video stream in the form of video pictures showing the copyright information, for example in textual form at the begin or at the end of the video sequence, as it is common for commercial movies. However, such human-visible marking can be annoying, especially when it is placed within the content itself. Copyright information may also be conveyed in the form of metadata associated with the video bitstream, and players/renders/displays may be configured to show that metadata in a suitable for upon user request or for other reasons.
Longer video clips can readily be composed using shorter clips from multiple sources, each of which may require different copyright information. In such a scenario, it may be advantageous to associate the copyright information only with those parts of the composed video to which it pertains. Insofar, metadata marking for copyright advantageously should support marking a well-defined-ideally based on picture boundaries-part of a video stream. Further, even short copyright messages, often in the form of “©<copyright holder>, all rights reserved” or “Copyright <copyright holder>, all rights reserved”, or even longer messages indicative of a copyright license, tend to exceed 30 octets in length and require a mechanism allow for such sized messages. Finally, copyright messages ought to be standardized and applicable to those video coding standards in practical use.
ITU-T Rec H.263 Annex W includes a “Picture Message” SEI message, which allows for a free-form text to be carried in the SEI. MTYPE 2 in that message can be indicative of copyright-related content. That message, as specified, has certain disadvantages: a) it is specified only for the H.263 syntax, b) the scope of the text message (current picture, coded video sequence, . . . is undefined, c) the message is de-facto limited to only 27 characters as the extension mechanism of the H.263 Annex W message is known to have an error. All three disadvantages make the H.263-defined copyright SEI message unsuitable for today's video.
As the H.263 SEI message is unsuitable for modern video, there is a need for modern SEI metadata, fulfilling the following requirements.
In an embodiment, metadata suitable for marking one or more coded pictures in a coded video sequence with copyright information can have syntax as shown in example 600A and 600B of
All design alternatives have in common the following syntax elements, that are present also in many other SEI messages and are used here with comparable semantics:
A copyright_cancel flag 610, when true, may cancel the previously received copyright 601 SEI message and resets the state of any variables related to copyright information to undefined—however, see also the copright_persistence flag 612 below. When the flag is false 611, at least the current picture may be subject to the copyright information. Further, the syntax may force the presence of additional syntax elements, which in combination may be indicative of the current picture or the next picture-depending on whether the SEI message is a prefix or suffix SEI message—as subject to the copyright information.
A copyright_persistence_flag 612, when 0, may indicate that the remaining information within the copyright SEI 601 pertains to the current decoded picture only. The copyright_persistence_flag 612, when 1, may indicate that the copyright SEI message may apply to the current decoded picture and may persists all subsequent pictures in output order until one or more of the following conditions are true:
Certain arrangements in the above semantics may be necessary to support layered coding; for example, clarifying whether the SEI pertains only to pictures of a certain layer or all layers and similar. Those arrangements can follow mechanisms present in certain video coding standards including H.266 and are known to a person skilled in the art. They are omitted here for clarity only.
The simple form of a copyright SEI message 601 shows a design where the copyright information may be included in one string 620. In the same or another embodiment, the format of the string 620 could be free-form, though it may advantageously follow conventions for copyright statements in the legislation the bitstream, or its source, has been created. For example, for content created by Tencent in 2023 for which no rights are granted, the copyright string could be “© Tencent, 2023, all rights reserved.”
In the same or another embodiment, the string 620 could be required by the semantics to be in a certain structured format. That format may be defined in the semantics. As an example, the string may be required to be in a format according to the c-style format string “Copyright: % s: % 4d, % s”. A person familiar with the C programming language will readily understand that the % s could refer to a zero-terminated character sequence (where the zero is being omitted when the character sequence is printed using printf( ) or sprintf( ) and % 4d refers to an integer rendered in four digits. The semantics may require that the character sequence replacing the first % s may be a suitable identification of the copyright holder—for example the string “Tencent”; the “% 4d” may be the rendering of the year of creation, and the second % s may be the use/licensing information such as “all rights reserved”. Such a structured approach may allow for easier automatic processing.
In the same or another embodiment, the format of the string (620) could be in JSON format, with JSON codepoints including, but not necessarily limited to, a copyright owner identification, a year of creation, and a use/licensing statement. In this case, the string (620) could look as follows
In the same or another embodiment, the string 620 could follow other structural content representation languages such as, for example, XML or ASN.1.
In the aforementioned cases, syntax restrictions can be spelled out in free-form language in the semantics or may be enforced through the mandated use of a schema or equivalent.
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The SEI message 630 may contain beyond the copyright_cancel_flag 610 and the copyright_persistence_flag 612 also the unconditionally present cr_owner_string 631 and the cr_year 632. The term “unconditionally” here refers to that they are not gated by individual presence flags, in contrast to a syntax element introduced later.
The cr_owner 631 may be required by the semantics to include appropriate identification information, the name of a (natural or other person or persons). A similar concept was already introduced above in the context of the JSON syntax.
For the cr-Year 632, a 12 bit fixed length unsigned binary codeword can be used that would allow the representation of the year 0 . . . 4095. Other options could include a shorter binary coded integer that starts at a date significant in copyright law (for example, an 8 bit field where the value 0 represents the year 1886 as the first adoption of the Berne convention), or a string.
As for the use/licensing information, a flexible syntax such as the syntax of H.266 can shortcut certain phrases or licenses and code them in few bits, thereby increasing coding efficiency. For example, one commonly used use/licensing information can be “all rights reserved”. The syntax can, for example, include a binary bit 633 representing “all_rights_reserved” that, when true is indicative of no rights being granted by the copyright owner, and when false may force in the syntax the presence of a string 634 including a licensing information in free text form. Additional optimizations are also possible; for example, commonly used copyright licenses such as the Creative Commons licenses could be represented by shortcut bits. Alternatively, or in addition, a set of licenses can also be represented by an integer where certain numbers can be indicative of certain licenses. A person skilled in the art can easily devise other optimizations, that advantageously include at least one way to include a free-form string.
A copyright SEI message can be used, for example, as follows.
Referring to example 700 of
A streaming server 714 may have access to the coded content. The streaming server's 714 policies may include parsing the bitstream 707 for Copyright SEI messages 708 (or the coded content may include metadata, derived from the SEI message 708 representing the same content). Depending on the data of the copyright SEI message 708, the streaming server may refuse streaming the content to non-licensed users 723.
Assuming the streaming server 714 can stream the content, either because it is configured to ignore the content of the copyright SEI message (708) or because the receiving user 723 is licensed, the streaming server can stream the content over a network 715 to a decoder 719. The decoder can reconstruct the coded bitstream but may also refuse to do so based on the copyright information SEI message 708 and its local policies. Assuming the decoder 708 decodes the bitstream, it may include, either directly, or by instructing a renderer 720 a visual cue 722 of the copyright information 702 for information of the receiving user 723 through a display 721.
The visual cue 722, may be based on such SEI message, and may be included as part of a stream of spliced content and advertisement media such that the content may have a first copyright information whereas an advertisement played/spliced between portions of such content may instead have other copyright information, both or any of which being indicated by one or more such SEI message.
It is asserted that each of these SEI message relates to signaling a text string for different roles or purposes. It is asserted that a common SEI message which provides text information for various purposes avoids the need to define multiple SEI messages which provide specific type of text information, while providing future extensibility. And according to embodiments herein, there is provided example text description information SEI message is used for this.
Main aspects include the following:
The VSEI is an SEI message to convey copyright information in a video stream, to enable marking the video stream with a copyright related statement such as a copyright notice. Options are disclosed: free-form st(v) text, and syntax-structured copyright information.
An SEI message allowing marking a coded video stream, or parts thereof, with a copyright marker has been part of H.263 Annex W's “Picture Message” SEI (MTYPE equal to 2). H.263's “picture message” SEI consisted basically of scope information, an integer with “purposes” (such as: copyright, close caption, undefined, but also bit-oriented information typically for error resilience purposes) and, for purposes requiring text, something similar to what we call today st(v). No similar message is currently included in H.26 [4 . . . 6] or VSEI.
What is needed, therefore, is metadata in the video elementary stream that is marked and reserved for copyright-related information. In its simplest form, copyright information can be in the form of a free-form st(v) string, which can be used to convey information such as “Copyright Tencent 2023, all rights reserved”. By convention or through a requirement in the VSEI semantics, the string could alternatively be required to be carry xml, json, or similarly structured information. The advantage of this approach is that it simplifies automatic processing. However, the cost in additional bits is substantial.
Embodiments herein use the cancel_flag and persistence_flag for persistence information. Doing so is as the source content may be composed of pictures that have different copyright information associated with, independently of how those pictures are arranged in CVSs.
And in countries following the Berne convention, a copyright notice commonly includes four elements:
For copyright SEI as a free-form string, this SEI message consists of the persistence information, along with a free-form string, for example, see the example 800 of
ci_cancel_flag equal to 1 indicates that the SEI message cancels the persistence of any previous copyright information SEI message in output order that applies to the current layer. ci_cancel_flag equal to 0 indicates that copyright information follows.
ci_persistence_flag specifies the persistence of the copyright information SEI message for the current layer.
ci_persistence_flag equal to 0 specifies that the copyright information applies to the current decoded picture only.
ci_persistence_flag equal to 1 specifies that the copyright information SEI message applies to the current decoded picture and persists for all subsequent pictures of the current layer in output order until one or more of the following conditions are true:
ci_information specifies copyright information that pertains to the picture(s) in the persistence scope defined by ci_cancel_flag and ci_persistence_flag.
Informative note: A typical content of ci_information includes the string “Copyright” or the “©” symbol, information identifying the copyright owner such as a personal or company name, the year of creation of the content according to the Gregorian calendar, and a use/licensing statement such as “all rights reserved”.
And for a structured copyright SEI, there may not be need to place the string “Copyright” or the “©” symbol in the bitstream because the semantics make it unambiguously clear that the SEI message relates to copyright, and therefore, when interpreting it, the string “Copyright” or the letter “©” is to be thought as a header for the remainder of the information. And as for the year of creation of the copyrighted material: since 1978, and with few exceptions, content is copyright protected for the life of the author plus 70 years. Extensions of the 70 years are under discussion but not agreed. A “magic” date in copyright law is the year 1886, when the Berne convention was first signed. This may be a reasonable first year for content from which copyright could be counted; older work is in the public domain now. An 8-bit unsigned integer would allow for coding the copyright for material with a creation date in year 2142, which is surely enough for the practical lifetime of the standards currently under development. Hence u(8) is proposed. But, embodiments allow for longer integers. An unoptimized option would be u(12), to be interpreted in year of the Gregorian calendar.
With this, embodiments employ the following syntax and semantics including the ci_owner and ci_year_plus1886 as in example 800 of
ci_cancel_flag equal to 1 indicates that the SEI message cancels the persistence of any previous copyright information SEI message in output order that applies to the current layer. ci_cancel_flag equal to 0 indicates that copyright information follows.
ci_persistence_flag specifies the persistence of the copyright information SEI message for the current layer.
ci_persistence_flag equal to 0 specifies that the copyright information applies to the current decoded picture only.
ci_persistence_flag equal to 1 specifies that the copyright information SEI message applies to the current decoded picture and persists for all subsequent pictures of the current layer in output order until one or more of the following conditions are true:
ci_owner specifies the owner of the copyright that pertains to the picture(s) in the persistence scope defined by ci_cancel_flag and ci_persistence_flag.
ci_year_plus1886 specifies the year of creation of the the picture(s) in the persistence scope defined by ci_cancel_flag and ci_persistence_flag minus 1886 years.
ci_information specifies copyright information.
Informative note: A typical content of ci_information is a use/licensing statement such as “all rights reserved”.
And, the above is to be taken at least as examples and the scope and spirit of the disclosure herein will be readily understood in the art as allowing for some variations regarding such syntax and definition.
The techniques for Copyright SEI message, described above, can be implemented as computer software using computer-readable instructions and physically stored in one or more computer-readable media. For example,
The computer software can be coded using any suitable machine code or computer language, that may be subject to assembly, compilation, linking, or like mechanisms to create code comprising instructions that can be executed directly, or through interpretation, micro-code execution, and the like, by computer central processing units (CPUs), Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), and the like.
The instructions can be executed on various types of computers or components thereof, including, for example, personal computers, tablet computers, servers, smartphones, gaming devices, internet of things devices, and the like.
The components shown in
Computer system 900 may include certain human interface input devices. Such a human interface input device may be responsive to input by one or more human users through, for example, tactile input (such as: keystrokes, swipes, data glove movements), audio input (such as: voice, clapping), visual input (such as: gestures), olfactory input (not depicted). The human interface devices can also be used to capture certain media not necessarily directly related to conscious input by a human, such as audio (such as: speech, music, ambient sound), images (such as: scanned images, photographic images obtain from a still image camera), video (such as two-dimensional video, three-dimensional video including stereoscopic video).
Input human interface devices may include one or more of (only one of each depicted): keyboard 901, mouse 902, trackpad 903, touch screen 910, joystick 905, microphone 906, scanner 908, camera 907.
Computer system 900 may also include certain human interface output devices. Such human interface output devices may be stimulating the senses of one or more human users through, for example, tactile output, sound, light, and smell/taste. Such human interface output devices may include tactile output devices (for example tactile feedback by the touch-screen 910, or joystick 905, but there can also be tactile feedback devices that do not serve as input devices), audio output devices (such as: speakers 909, headphones (not depicted)), visual output devices (such as screens 910 to include CRT screens, LCD screens, plasma screens, OLED screens, each with or without touch-screen input capability, each with or without tactile feedback capability-some of which may be capable to output two dimensional visual output or more than three dimensional output through means such as stereographic output; virtual-reality glasses (not depicted), holographic displays and smoke tanks (not depicted)), and printers (not depicted).
Computer system 900 can also include human accessible storage devices and their associated media such as optical media including CD/DVD ROM/RW 920 with CD/DVD 911 or the like media, thumb-drive 922, removable hard drive or solid state drive 923, legacy magnetic media such as tape and floppy disc (not depicted), specialized ROM/ASIC/PLD based devices such as security dongles (not depicted), and the like.
Those skilled in the art should also understand that term “computer readable media” as used in connection with the presently disclosed subject matter does not encompass transmission media, carrier waves, or other transitory signals.
Computer system 900 can also include interface 999 to one or more communication networks 998. Networks 998 can for example be wireless, wireline, optical. Networks 998 can further be local, wide-area, metropolitan, vehicular and industrial, real-time, delay-tolerant, and so on. Examples of networks 998 include local area networks such as Ethernet, wireless LANs, cellular networks to include GSM, 3G, 4G, 5G, LTE and the like, TV wireline or wireless wide area digital networks to include cable TV, satellite TV, and terrestrial broadcast TV, vehicular and industrial to include CANBus, and so forth. Certain networks 998 commonly require external network interface adapters that attached to certain general-purpose data ports or peripheral buses (950 and 951) (such as, for example USB ports of the computer system 900; others are commonly integrated into the core of the computer system 900 by attachment to a system bus as described below (for example Ethernet interface into a PC computer system or cellular network interface into a smartphone computer system). Using any of these networks 998, computer system 900 can communicate with other entities. Such communication can be uni-directional, receive only (for example, broadcast TV), uni-directional send-only (for example CANbusto certain CANbus devices), or bi-directional, for example to other computer systems using local or wide area digital networks. Certain protocols and protocol stacks can be used on each of those networks and network interfaces as described above.
Aforementioned human interface devices, human-accessible storage devices, and network interfaces can be attached to a core 940 of the computer system 900.
The core 940 can include one or more Central Processing Units (CPU) 941, Graphics Processing Units (GPU) 942, a graphics adapter 917, specialized programmable processing units in the form of Field Programmable Gate Areas (FPGA) 943, hardware accelerators for certain tasks 944, and so forth. These devices, along with Read-only memory (ROM) 945, Random-access memory 946, internal mass storage such as internal non-user accessible hard drives, SSDs, and the like 947, may be connected through a system bus 948. In some computer systems, the system bus 948 can be accessible in the form of one or more physical plugs to enable extensions by additional CPUs, GPU, and the like. The peripheral devices can be attached either directly to the core's system bus 948, or through a peripheral bus 949. Architectures for a peripheral bus include PCI, USB, and the like.
CPUs 941, GPUs 942, FPGAs 943, and accelerators 944 can execute certain instructions that, in combination, can make up the aforementioned computer code. That computer code can be stored in ROM 945 or RAM 946. Transitional data can be also be stored in RAM 946, whereas permanent data can be stored for example, in the internal mass storage 947. Fast storage and retrieval to any of the memory devices can be enabled through the use of cache memory, that can be closely associated with one or more CPU 941, GPU 942, mass storage 947, ROM 945, RAM 946, and the like.
The computer readable media can have computer code thereon for performing various computer-implemented operations. The media and computer code can be those specially designed and constructed for the purposes of the present disclosure, or they can be of the kind well known and available to those having skill in the computer software arts.
As an example and not by way of limitation, the computer system having architecture 900, and specifically the core 940 can provide functionality as a result of processor(s) (including CPUs, GPUs, FPGA, accelerators, and the like) executing software embodied in one or more tangible, computer-readable media. Such computer-readable media can be media associated with user-accessible mass storage as introduced above, as well as certain storage of the core 940 that are of non-transitory nature, such as core-internal mass storage 947 or ROM 945. The software implementing various embodiments of the present disclosure can be stored in such devices and executed by core 940. A computer-readable medium can include one or more memory devices or chips, according to particular needs. The software can cause the core 940 and specifically the processors therein (including CPU, GPU, FPGA, and the like) to execute particular processes or particular parts of particular processes described herein, including defining data structures stored in RAM 946 and modifying such data structures according to the processes defined by the software. In addition or as an alternative, the computer system can provide functionality as a result of logic hardwired or otherwise embodied in a circuit (for example: accelerator 944), which can operate in place of or together with software to execute particular processes or particular parts of particular processes described herein. Reference to software can encompass logic, and vice versa, where appropriate. Reference to a computer-readable media can encompass a circuit (such as an integrated circuit (IC)) storing software for execution, a circuit embodying logic for execution, or both, where appropriate. The present disclosure encompasses any suitable combination of hardware and software.
While this disclosure has described several exemplary embodiments, there are alterations, permutations, and various substitute equivalents, which fall within the scope of the disclosure. It will thus be appreciated that those skilled in the art will be able to devise numerous systems and methods which, although not explicitly shown or described herein, embody the principles of the disclosure and are thus within the spirit and scope thereof.
This application claims priority to U.S. provisional application 63/606,062, filed on Dec. 4, 2023, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63606062 | Dec 2023 | US |