We can protect videos, graphics, and photos against copyright with ease by merely adding in a watermark. But how can you protect audio or music? As you may have guessed by the name, audio watermarking!
In simple terms, audio watermarking is the process of embedding an electronic identifier into an existing audio signal. The concept is similar to how we overlay photos, graphics, and documents with a watermark that proves to be difficult to remove.
There is more than one way that an audio watermark would prove to be beneficial to artists, companies, organizations, and streamers that are trying to facilitate a greater experience for their consumers.
Read on further, to get an idea of how watermarking your audio can help solve your live streaming issues!
Sync, Lag, and Latency
It can be quite frustrating when one is watching a live stream of some event and the audio seems to be a little ahead or behind the visuals. Lack of sync in the audio and video is a sure-fire way to quickly lose subscribers.
Inaccurate audio sync can potentially ruin the entire experience of a lifestream. But to get into the technical aspect of how sync, lag, and latency can be fixed through watermarking we need to understand what exactly they are.
Many times, lag and latency are used interchangeably but they are two very different things. Lag refers to the gap between the broadcast and the time it takes for the user to receive it and latency is the gap between data transfer itself.
But how does audio watermarking put an end to these during your live streams?
An audio watermark tackles these issues in a very simple yet effective manner especially if you work with reputed companies like Intrasonics. By timestamping all of the audio frames it perfectly synchronizes the playback on both the video and audio signals.
Piracy
Source: broadbandtvnews.com
This is perhaps the biggest issue that live streamers and other artists have been facing since the beginning of time.
When one integrates inaudible audio watermarking, in a way that can help identify any user that illegally sources and distributes the steam. Audio Watermarking or any other method out there is not a foolproof way to stop piracy.
But through audio watermarking, one can ensure that the source behind it is caught and prosecuted. In this way, you can try and deter others from following in the same footsteps.
A skilled company will be able to bring together a final product that ensures that audio quality is not affected by the audio watermarking process.
Types of Audio Watermarking
In case you are worried about impaired audio quality or anything else like that, you would realize it is not a threat when you see the wide array of watermarking techniques.
Ultrasonic
This type of audio watermarking is strategically placed into the stream such that it is out of the average human’s auditory thresholds.
A watermark such as this can be a great way to go if you are looking to straighten out your lag and latency issues. In such cases, it would be a good bet since it ensures the users’ sensory experience is not impacted.
But if you are looking for piracy protection this may not be so great as the watermark can easily be removed without affecting the user experience. Thus, making it essentially worthless if one must use it for forensic purposes.
Spread Spectrum
Through this technique, you can protect yourself from piracy while enabling forensics to find the watermark, in the case that it becomes necessary. Low-frequency audio is entwined within the duration of the audio such that it becomes extremely difficult or even impossible for a user to erase the watermark.
But from time to time you may face issues while live streaming as each individual experiences these low frequencies in a unique way. This means people sometimes complain of a low hymn or noise when listening to the audio.
Echo Modulation
Echo Modulation is often considered to be the perfect audio watermarking technique. Our auditory system seems to filter out short echoes when we listen to a live stream or any kind of audio. We usually only pick up on the long echos. This is the phenomenon that this method takes full advantage of.
It embeds the needed audio watermark into these short echoes that the human body’s auditory system has been tuned to filter out. This helps take care of almost all of the issues faced by live streamers.
Source: pinterest.com
Intrasonics is now the only company providing this methodology as a potential solution. This comes as a result of their specialized skill set that can be leveraged to help take care of audio lag, sync, and latency while protecting their customers against piracy.
Miscellaneous Benefits of Audio Watermarking
The data that has been integrated into the live stream can be used as a metric to track the usage history of a given audio file. This also helps the creator keep a tab on its popularity, which leads us to the next point.
Broadcast monitoring is yet another benefit of audio watermarking. This lets a streamer keep track of how many times their content is being telecasted on a radio or TV channel.
Perhaps the most advanced check of them all is the copy control feature of audio watermarking. Certain recording devices have been manufactured in a way that terminates the recording of an audio file when it picks up a watermark indicating the illegal proliferation of audio.
Source: voicesus.com
These are a few of the advantages of watermarking in your live stream that often goes overlooked as we have our sights set on lag and piracy protection.
Wrapping it Up
The one thing that a user is ultimately looking for is the quality of the live stream. Whereas, on the other side of the coin a creator can only hope that their work is not ripped off. Audio watermarking bring a viable solution to the table that makes sure that the majority of issues faced by live streamers are resolved.
Ensuring accurate timestamping and piracy protection can go a long way in helping creators protect themself and their hard work.
