An Information Hiding Algorithm for HEVC Videos Based on PU Partitioning Modes

Video information hiding has attracted increasing attention in the field of information security. In the literature, great quantities of information hiding algorithms based on DCT and intra prediction mode have been proposed for the latest video coding standard - High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC). However, few algorithms are reported to hide information in the inter prediction mode, one of the unique advantages of HEVC. This paper proposes an information hiding algorithm based on PU partitioning mode in P-frames, which realizes the embedding of hidden information without affecting the video quality. The PU partitioning mode selected by HEVC based on the optimum CU structure is recorded in the first round calculation and adopted as the reference for the modification process. PU partitioning modes are altered to embed hidden information. Since only the PU partitioning modes of P-frames is modified, the proposed algorithm can be combined with existing DCT-based or intra-prediction-based algorithms to greatly increase the embedding capacity while keeping the quality of the video sequence not being affected.