Multi-Channel Audio Information Hiding

We consider a method of hiding many audio channels in one host signal. The purpose of this is to provide a ‘mix’ that incorporates information on all the channels used to produce it, thereby allowing all, or, at least some channels to be stored in the mix for later use. After providing an overview of some recently published audio water marking schemes in the time and transform domains, we present a method that is based on using a four least significant bits scheme to embed five MP3 files into a single 16-bit host stereo WAV file without incurring any perceptual audio distortions in the host data. The hostWAV file is taken to be the final mix associated with the original data before applying ‘lose MP3’ compression or alternatively an arbitrary host audio signal into which other multichannel audio data is hidden. Further, the embedded information can be encrypted and/or the embedding locations randomized on a channel by channel basis depending on the protocol desired by the user. The method is illustrated by providing example m-code for interested readers to investigate and reproduce the results obtained to date and as a basis for further development.