Sample Variants: A Standardized Framework for Forensic Marking of ISOBMFF Files

Julia Kenyon

Forensic marking enables tracing an unauthorized copy of content to its source, which encourages content providers to broadly distribute high-value content. Today, forensic marking techniques are proprietary technology. Sample Variants address the need for a standardized framework for forensic marking, building on ISO Base Media File Format (ISOBMFF) files protected with ISO Common Encryption (CENC). — This paper provides an overview of Sample Variant data structures, as well as a discussion of how these structures can be used to optimize number of possible permutations while minimizing data overhead (to the point of determining player model number and other forensic data), and outlines various configurations that can be set up within this framework.

Published
2015-10
Content type
Original Research
Keywords
content protection, forensic marking, ISOBMFF, common encryption (CENC), watermarking, fingerprinting, Sample Variants
DOI
10.5594/M001637
ISBN
978-1-61482-956-0