Audio Watermarking and Fingerprinting Tools is a family of software digital audio watermarking core DSP engines. The family consists of several different technologies, each having its unique features and capabilities, thus making them applicable in different applications and use-cases.
AWT1 |
Audio Watermarking Tools 1 (AWT1) — a watermarking, "digital signing" solution realizing so called "strict watermarking" approach in the sense that the source (not watermarked) audio data is required in order to find and decode watermark in the watermarked recording. Watermark extraction is performed by “comparing” source and watermarked streams. Simple and effective watermarking solution demonstrating extreme, insane watermark robustness. |
AWT2 |
Audio Watermarking Tools 2 (AWT2) — a flagship watermarking, "digital signing" solution in the AWT family. AWT2 realizes so called "blind watermarking" approach in the sense that the watermark can be extracted directly from the watermarked audio recording, the source audio is not needed for watermark detection and extraction. AWT2 provides industrial grade performance, features, robustness and data rate. Designed for anti-piracy, monitoring, tracing and forensic purposes over digital and analog audio channels. |
AWT3 |
Audio Watermarking Tools 3 (AWT3) — an audio trigger and watermarking solution especially designed for reliable far-field, over-the-air digital signaling in so called "second screen" applications and for other similar uses (kick-shopping and more). Details and demo, including Android app allowing to detect arbitrary watermarks over-the-air, are available upon request. |
AWT4 |
Audio Watermarking Tools 4 (AWT4) — an audio triggering, signaling and watermarking solution providing time-precise "digital stamping" with high data rate. Allows placing/extracting capacious digital codes in audio streams at precise time places to trigger time- and data-specific events with very high timing accuracy (~30ms). |
AWT0 |
Audio Watermarking Tools 0 ("AWT-Zero") — inaudible signaling over lossless audio PCM channels. Allows watermarking of extremely short wave files and triggering over completely lossless audio channels. |
AFT |
Audio Fingerprinting Tools (AFT) — robust audio (acoustic) fingerprinting solution. Content matching, identification and monitoring by means of acoustic hashing. |
Refer to a detailed comparison chart of the watermarking AWT solutions below.
| Applications and uses | AWT1 | AWT2 | AWT3 | AWT4 | AWT0 |
| Robust watermarking designed specifically for anti-piracy | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| General purpose watermarking and digital signing suitable for authentication, anti-piracy, back-tracking and forensic purposes | Yes | Yes | Partially | Partially | Yes |
| Data-hiding, data-transmission mean for general purposes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (via lossless PCM channel only) |
| Reliable over-the-air sound transmission/triggering (for second-screen uses) | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Live broadcast monitoring (easy/fast automated watermarks search) | Partially | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (via lossless PCM channel only) |
| Events triggering by signaling via audio stream | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (via lossless PCM channel only) |
| Algorithm characterization | AWT1 | AWT2 | AWT3 | AWT4 | AWT0 |
| Decoder needs source (not watermarked) audio to find/extract watermark | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Overal watermarks robustness | Very high, insane | Very high | High | High | Minimal |
| Watermarks are inaudible | Yes | Yes | Yes | Almost | Yes |
| Watermarks survive wave editing (cutting, cropping, padding) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Watermarks survive time-stretching (playback speed variation) | No | Yes | Partially | Yes | No |
| Watermarks survive tracks mixing | Yes | Partially | Yes | Partially | No |
| Watermarks survive lossy transcoding (MP3, Youtube, etc.) | Yes | Yes | Yes, with proper settings | Yes | No |
| Watermarks survive bandwidth limiting | Yes, fully | Yes, fully | Typically not | Yes, with proper settings | N/A |
| ... survive FM radio transmission | Yes | Yes | Typically not | Yes, with proper settings | N/A |
| ... survive transmission over telephone lines | Yes | Yes | No | Yes, with proper settings | N/A |
| Watermarks reliably survive air-transducing (sound transmission over the air) | Yes | Partially (on short distances) | Yes (even on long distances) | Partially (with proper settings) | No |
| Watermarks can be used for over-the-air triggering | No | No | Yes (even on long distances) | Partially (with proper settings) | No |
| Very low-power watermark detection | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Watermarks are fully secret and cannot be detected by expert signal inspection | Yes | Yes | Partially | Partially | Yes |
| Minimal watermarkable audio duration | ~ 5 sec | ~ 5 sec | ~ 3 sec | ~ 3 sec | ~ 20 ms |
| Watermark payload length | Up to 20 bytes* | Up to 120 bytes* | Up to 30 bytes* | Up to 48 bytes* | Up to 128 bytes* |
| Multi-layer watermarking capabilities (multiple independent watermarks in one stream) | No | Yes, dual-layer | Partially | Yes, multiple layers | No |
| Time-accurate watermark placement and detection | No | ~8 sec precision | ~150 ms precision | ~30 ms precision | Up to ~5 ms precision |
| Default/typical watermark carrier frequency region | Low+mid range, fixed | Low+mid range, fixed | Ultra-sonic, configurable | Fully configurable | N/A (not frequency-based) |
| Types of AWT-watermarks that can co-exist in the same stream | AWT3, AWT4 | AWT3, AWT4 | AWT1, AWT2, AWT4 | AWT1, AWT2, AWT3 | N/A |
| Encoding speed | Very high | Very high | High | Very high | Very high |
| Watermarking domain | Uncompressed | Uncompressed | Uncompressed | Uncompressed | Uncompressed |
| Software and Deliverables | AWT1 | AWT2 | AWT3 | AWT4 | AWT0 |
| Free evaluation package available | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Cross-platform software (Windows, Linux, Mac OS, mobiles) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Command line (CLI) file-to-file tools for easy automation and scripting on servers | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| User-friendly GUI for desktop OS | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| SDK available | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SDK with real-time audio streams encoding & decoding capabilities | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Detailed documentation | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Android app available | No | Yes | Yes | No | No |
(*) subject to limitations in different packages