JP2000332612A - Device and method for information processing - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To suppress degradation of digital information to the utmost in decoding digital information embedding encoding specified information by providing an encoding means or the like for encoding encoded unit information in which the specified information is embedded and other encoded unit information, respectively. SOLUTION: Moving picture information of areas A to D in a memory 102 is sequentially transmitted to an encoding circuit 106, encoded there and encoding data of encoded moving picture information are transmitted from an area (a) to area (d) in a memory 109. Then, in an encoding amount comparison circuit 108, a block which has the largest total encoding amount of the blocks A to D is determined and a signal 117 for indicating an area of the memory 109 which stores the encoding data in the block is transmitted to a memory address control circuit 110. In this way, electronic watermark information can be embedded in the moving picture information of the encoding unit block where the amount of encoding becomes the maximum of the blocks A to D and degradation of digital information can be suppressed in decoding embedding encoded information.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and method, and more particularly, to an information processing apparatus and method for embedding and encoding predetermined information in digital information.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, a technique for handling digital data via a recording medium or a transmission medium has been established. For example, image information can be easily recorded and transmitted while maintaining high image quality. Along with this, digital information is illegally duplicated, and illegally duplicated digital information can be easily handled. Therefore, copyright protection of such information has been increasing.

Several methods have been considered to prevent unauthorized duplication of digital information for commercial purposes. These methods include, for example, a levy system in which a copyright fee is added to the price of a recording medium and sold, and a method in which digital information is encrypted or scrambled.

[0004] However, there is a concern that the levy system may hinder the spread of digital information due to an increase in the price of a recording medium.
Further, encryption or scramble processing of digital information makes it difficult to refer to the contents of the information, and once encryption or scramble is broken, copyright protection is difficult.

Therefore, as a system for preventing or suppressing unauthorized duplication of digital information, ID information or a logo mark indicating a copyright holder or a right-of-use user is superimposed as watermark information on the corresponding digital information and hidden. "Digital watermark technology" is regarded as important.

In the digital watermarking technique, as shown in FIG. 1, copyright information or ID information indicating a user or the like is embedded in digital information such as image information input from 801 in a digital watermark information superimposing unit 802. Things.
The digital information on which the digital watermark information is superimposed is compression-encoded in the encoding unit 803, and is recorded or transmitted by the transmission medium 8.
Sent to 04.

On the other hand, the compression-coded digital information obtained from the medium 804 is decoded by the decoding unit 805, and the digital watermark information is separated and output to the digital watermark information 808 by the digital watermark information detecting unit 806. Is output. In this manner, copyright information or information such as a user can be obtained from digital information recorded or transmitted.

[0008] Further, since watermark information is superimposed on recorded or transmitted digital information, in order to illegally duplicate the digital information, it is necessary to remove the watermark information from the digital information. Degradation, for example, image quality degradation occurs, and the copyright of the original digital information is protected.

[0009]

When digital watermark information is embedded in moving picture information such as a television image, the amount of information increases by the amount of the embedded digital watermark information. When such moving picture information is compressed and recorded on a recording medium, the compression rate of the moving picture information is increased by the amount of the embedded digital watermark information, and the image quality of the decompressed moving picture is increased by the increased compression rate. Deteriorates.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problem, and it is an object of the present invention to minimize the deterioration of digital information when decoding digital information in which predetermined information is embedded and encoded.

[0011]

The present invention has the following configuration as one means for achieving the above object.

An image processing apparatus according to the present invention comprises: a dividing unit for dividing digital information into coding unit information; and coding unit information having a maximum code amount when each of the divided coding unit information is coded. Detecting means for detecting
Embedding means for embedding predetermined information in the coding unit information that becomes the maximum code amount when coding, coding unit information in which the predetermined information is embedded, and other coding unit information Encoding means for encoding.

An image processing method according to the present invention divides digital information into coding unit information, and detects coding unit information having the maximum code amount when each of the divided coding unit information is coded. When coding, the predetermined information is embedded in the coding unit information which becomes the maximum code amount, the coding unit information in which the predetermined information is embedded, and
The other encoding unit information is encoded.

[0014]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, an information processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. In the following, an embodiment in which digital watermark information is embedded in moving image information will be described. However, digital information on which digital watermark information is superimposed also includes still image information, sound information, text information, and the like.

In the following description, one frame of a television image is divided into a plurality of two-dimensional blocks as shown in FIG. 2, and each block is coded for each block (coding unit block) having a block name from A to D. A moving image processing apparatus that records or transmits the moving image information and reproduces the encoded moving image information will be described. In the following description, a plurality of blocks having the same name are treated as one block. Then, this device embeds digital watermark information in a block having the largest code amount among blocks A to D for each frame.

[0016]

[First Embodiment] FIG. 3 encodes video information,
FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a circuit configuration for adding digital watermark information.

In FIG. 3, reference numeral 102 denotes a memory capable of storing moving image information for eight blocks, that is, two frames. The moving picture information input from 101 is sent to areas A to D of the memory 102 corresponding to the above-mentioned block by the signal 111 from the memory address control circuit 110. further,
During this frame encoding and digital watermark information embedding processing, the moving image information of the next frame is stored in the area A ′ of the memory 102.
To D '.

As described above, the moving picture information is sequentially sent from the areas A to D or A 'to D' of the memory 102 for each frame, and is alternately encoded. Hereinafter, processing of the moving image information sent from the areas A to D will be described.

The signal 103 of the memory address control circuit 110 switches the switch 103 so that its output is sent to the encoding circuit 106. Therefore, the moving picture information in the areas A to D is sequentially sent to the coding circuit 106 and coded, and the coded data as the coded moving picture information is transferred from the area a in the memory 109.
sent to d. In the memory 109, the code data corresponding to the areas A, B, C, and D are stored in the areas a, b, c, and d, respectively, by the signal 114 of the memory address control circuit 110.

The code amount obtaining circuit 107 obtains the code amount of the code data for each block, and sequentially sends data 115 indicating the total code amount for each block to the code amount comparing circuit 108. When the total code amount data of the fourth block (for example, block D) is transmitted, the code amount comparison circuit 108
The block having the largest total code amount among the blocks A to D is determined, and a signal 117 indicating an area of the memory 109 for storing the code data of the block is transmitted to the memory address control circuit.
Send to 110.

Upon receiving the signal 117, the memory address control circuit 110 generates a signal 111 for reading out the moving picture information from the area of the memory 102 storing the moving picture information with the maximum total code amount. At the same time, a signal 112 for switching the switch 103 to the electronic watermark information superimposing circuit 104 is generated to send the moving image information to the electronic watermark information superimposing circuit 104.

Here, assuming that the moving picture information having the maximum total code amount is stored in the area C, the moving picture information read from the area C of the memory 102 has the digital watermark information 105 embedded therein, and the coding circuit 106 It is encoded and re-stored in the area c of the memory 109 by the signal 114 of the memory address control circuit 110.

Next, the signal 1 of the memory address control circuit 110
By 14, the code data stored in the memory 109 is sequentially read, and is output as a code data from 119 to a recording or transmission medium. At this time, the code data of the block having the largest code amount is added to a digital watermark address attaching circuit.
At 118, a code 113 indicating that the data is code data of a block including digital watermark information is added as additional information.

In this manner, the digital watermark information can be embedded in the moving picture information of the coding unit block having the largest code amount among the blocks A to D.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing an example of a circuit configuration for reproducing moving image information from code data to which digital watermark information has been added.

A digital watermark address detection circuit 202 reads additional information 203 indicating a block in which digital watermark information is embedded, from code data input from the medium to 201,
The additional information 203 is sent to the electronic watermark information detection control circuit 206.
On the other hand, the code data is decoded by the decoding circuit 204.
The decoded moving image information is sent to the digital watermark information detection control circuit 20.
In accordance with the signal 207 of No. 6, the data is sequentially sent from the predetermined areas a ′ to d ′ of the memory 205 and is sequentially read.

The digital watermark information detection control circuit 206 outputs a signal 208 for switching the switch 210 to the digital watermark information detection circuit 211 based on the additional information 203 only when the moving picture information of the block in which the digital watermark information is embedded is read. Then, reading of the digital watermark information 215 is controlled. The read digital watermark information 215 is output from 214, and is used for processing for protecting the copyright of the moving image information 213 which is sequentially output from 212 and reproduced.

In this way, by decoding the moving picture information from the code data to which the digital watermark information obtained from the medium is added, the digital watermark information embedded in the moving picture information can be obtained, and the moving picture can be reproduced. . In particular, by embedding the digital watermark information in the moving image information corresponding to the coding unit having the largest code amount, the information amount of the digital watermark information sent to the medium can be relatively reduced, and the compression of the original digital information can be performed. The rate increase can be minimized. Further, the image area having a large code amount is an area composed of a complicated image, and is an area in which noise is hardly noticeable visually. Since the digital watermark information is embedded in such an image area, it is possible to prevent the image quality of the reproduced image from deteriorating.

[0029]

Second Embodiment A second embodiment according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. Figure 5 shows one of the television images
Dividing the information in the frame into four two-dimensional blocks,
9 is a flowchart illustrating an example of image compression encoding processing of encoding and transmitting block by block, and illustrating a process of embedding digital watermark information in moving image information of a block having the largest code amount among four blocks of each frame. .

In step S301, one frame of moving picture information is input, and in step S302, one frame of moving picture information is divided into four blocks A to D shown in FIG. Next, the moving image information divided into blocks in step S303 is encoded.
Then, the code amount is obtained for each block of the obtained code data in step S304, and the block having the maximum code amount is detected in step S305.

Subsequently, the processing of steps S306 to S308 is performed only for the moving picture information of the block having the largest code amount.
Decoding the moving image data before encoding (S306), embedding the digital watermark information in the decoded moving image data (S307), re-encoding the moving image data with the embedded digital watermark information (S308),
Proceed to step S309. On the other hand, the process proceeds to step S309 without doing anything about the moving image information other than the block having the largest code amount.

Subsequently, in step S309, the code data thus obtained is packetized for recording or transmission, and additional information indicating a block in which digital watermark information is embedded is added. Step S310
Outputs the code data to the medium.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a process for reproducing encoded moving image data. First, step
In step S401, code data is input for each coding unit block, and in step S402, it is determined from the sub-coat information of each block whether or not the block has digital watermark information embedded therein.

For the block in which the digital watermark information is not embedded, the decoding process is performed as it is in step S403. For the block in which the digital watermark information is embedded, the block is decoded in step S404. read out. The read digital watermark information is output in step S407 to protect the copyright of the moving image information. Further, the decoded moving image information is output as the moving image information reproduced in step S406.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the same effects as those of the first embodiment can be obtained by software.

In the first and second embodiments described above, one frame of moving picture information is divided into four blocks A to D shown in FIG. 2, and each of these blocks is treated as a coding unit. A frame or a field can be treated as a coding unit. in this case,
For example, by increasing the capacity of each memory,
Accumulate video data for one frame or one field,
The code amount of each frame or field is obtained, and the code amount is compared every four frames or four fields, and the digital watermark information is embedded in the frame or field where the code amount is maximized. In this way, the amount of digital watermark information recorded or transmitted can be reduced to suppress an increase in the compression rate of moving image information as much as possible. Since the digital watermark information is embedded in a frame or a field in which noise is hardly noticeable, it is possible to prevent image quality degradation of a reproduced moving image.

[0037]

Third Embodiment A third embodiment according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. 7, but the same reference numerals are given to the same components as in the first embodiment, and detailed description thereof will be omitted.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing an example of a circuit configuration for adding digital watermark information in a system for performing intra-frame coding and inter-frame coding. For example,
As shown in an example in FIG. 8, there are an intra-frame (I frame) to be intra-coded, and three prediction-coded frames P1 to P3 to be predictively encoded (inter-frame encoded) from the previous frame. . Then, in the encoding of the I frame, as shown in FIG. 2, one frame is divided into four two-dimensional blocks, and digital watermark information is embedded in the image information of the block having the largest code amount.

The moving picture information input from 101 is sent to the memory 502. Then, according to the signal 111 from the memory address control circuit 110, the I frame is sent from the area A to D for each block in order to embed digital watermark information by comparing the code amount of each block, and the P1 to P3 frames are , Sequentially sent to the frame memory.

The switch 103 is connected to the memory address control circuit 1
The output is sent to the switch 506 by the signal 111 of 10. The switch 506 is switched by the signal 510 of the intra-frame / inter-frame encoding system switching circuit 509 so that its output is sent to the intra-frame encoding circuit 507 side. The switch 513 is connected to the signal 512 of the intra-frame / inter-frame coding system switching circuit 509.
Is switched so that the output is sent to the memory 523 side.

Therefore, in accordance with the signal 111 of the memory address control circuit 110, the moving picture information stored in the areas A to D is sequentially read out, sent to the intra-frame coding circuit 507 via the switches 103 and 506, and Encoded. Then, the encoded I-frame data is stored in the switch 513.
Through the memory address control circuit 110
, The code data corresponding to the areas A, B, C and D are stored in the areas a, b, c and d, respectively.

As in the first embodiment, the code amount obtaining circuit 107
The block having the largest total code amount among the blocks A to D is determined by the operation of the code amount comparison circuit 108 and the memory address control circuit 110, and a signal indicating the area of the memory 502 for storing the code data of the block. 117 is sent to the memory address control circuit 110.

The memory address control circuit 110 which has received the signal 117 generates a signal 111 for reading out the moving picture information from the area of the memory 502 which stores the moving picture information having the maximum total code amount. At the same time, a signal 112 for switching the switch 103 to the electronic watermark information superimposing circuit 104 is generated to send the moving image information to the electronic watermark information superimposing circuit 104. Therefore, as in the first embodiment, the moving image information is read from the area of the memory 502 in which the moving image information with the maximum total code amount is stored, the digital watermark information 105 is embedded, and the intra-frame encoding circuit 507 is used. And is stored again in the corresponding area of the memory 523 by the signal 114 of the memory address control circuit 110.

Next, as in the first embodiment, the code data stored in the memory 523 is sequentially read out by the signal 114 of the memory address control circuit 110, and the additional information is added by the digital watermark address attachment circuit 118. The encoded data is output from 119 to a recording or transmission medium.

In this manner, the digital watermark information can be embedded in the moving picture information of the coding unit block having the maximum code amount among the blocks A to D of the I frame.

On the other hand, the I frame and the P1 to P3 frames are sent to the interframe coding circuit 508 via the switches 103 and 506, and are interframe coded. The inter-coded code data of P1 to P3 frames is stored in the frame memory of the memory 523 via the switch 513,
Following the frame, it is output from 119 to a recording or transmission medium.

In the moving picture information encoded in this way, the image information of the I frame in which the digital watermark information is embedded in a certain block is the same as the moving picture information reproducing apparatus of the first embodiment shown in FIG. Can be played back with the configuration.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the same effects as in the first embodiment can be obtained for moving picture information to be intra-frame encoded and inter-frame encoded.

[0049]

Fourth Embodiment Next, a fourth embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. 9. Like the first and third embodiments, the same components are denoted by the same reference numerals and detailed description thereof will be omitted.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing an example of a circuit configuration for adding digital watermark information in a system for performing intra-frame coding and inter-frame coding as in the third embodiment.

In the present embodiment, in the P1 to P3 frames, the code amount when the inter-frame coding is performed between the I and P2 previous frames is obtained for each of the blocks A to D, and the four blocks are obtained. By comparing the code amounts, the block having the maximum code amount is determined, and the digital watermark information is embedded in the moving image information of the corresponding block in the I frame that is the reference for inter-frame coding.

By the switch 602, the I frame of the moving picture information input to 101 is sent to the I frame memory 603 and held until the block in which the digital watermark information is embedded is determined. All the frames are sent to the inter-frame coding circuit 508, and the I frame and the P1 frame (P1-
I), a difference is obtained between the P1 frame and the P2 frame (P2-P1) and between the P2 frame and the P3 frame (P3-P2), and inter-frame coding for coding the difference is performed.

Here, the inter-frame coding is performed in the order of the blocks A to D shown in FIG.
The code amount is sent to the inter-frame code data memory 626 and to the code amount acquisition circuit 615, where the code amount for each block is obtained. Then, the code amount information of each block is sent from the block A code amount summation circuit 617 to the block D code amount summation circuit 620, and the sum total of the code amounts of the difference code data between frames in blocks A to D is obtained.

When the sum of the code amounts of each block is obtained, the sum information of the code amounts of each block is sent to the comparison circuit 621, and the block having the largest sum of the code amounts is determined. The block whose sum of the code amounts is determined to be the maximum is
It is considered to represent the region where the image change is the largest in the four frames from I to P3. Therefore, if the digital watermark information is embedded in the block determined to have the maximum code amount sum, the digital watermark information embedded in the image can be made inconspicuous.

The digital watermark information superimposition control circuit 622, which has received the information indicating the block in which the total sum of the code amount is maximum,
A signal 623 for reading the image information of the I frame is sent to the frame memory 603, and a signal 624 for embedding the electronic watermark information in the block designated by the comparison circuit 621 is sent to the electronic watermark information superimposing circuit 104.

The image information of the I frame in which the digital watermark information is embedded is encoded by the intra-frame encoding circuit 507, and information indicating the block in which the digital watermark information is embedded by the electronic watermark address attaching circuit 118 is signal 62.
Added based on 5. Then, the encoded I frame is output from 119 as encoded data, and the encoded P1 to P3 frames are output in that order.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram showing an example of a circuit configuration for reproducing moving image information from code data to which digital watermark information has been added as described above.

The digital watermark address detection circuit 202 reads additional information 203 indicating a block in which digital watermark information is embedded from the I-frame code data input from the medium to the medium 201, and converts the additional information 203 into a digital watermark information detection circuit 211. Send to Also, the code data is distinguished from the attached information into code data corresponding to the I frame and the P frame. Then, with respect to the code data of the I frame, the output of the switch 704 and the input of the switch 708 are switched to the intra-frame decoding circuit 705, and the intra-frame decoding process is performed. On the other hand, for the code data of the P frame, the output of the switch 704 and the input of the switch 708 are switched to the inter-frame decoding circuit 706, and the image information of the previous frame stored in the frame memory 709 by the adder 707 is displayed. By performing the addition, an inter-frame decoding process is performed.

The inter-frame decoding circuit 706 and the adder 707
By using the configuration of the frame memory 709, the digital watermark information embedded in the I frame sequentially spreads from P1 to P3 frames, and the digital watermark information can be embedded in all the frames of the moving image information to be reproduced.

The electronic watermark information detection circuit 211 is provided with the additional information 2
Based on 03, digital watermark information is extracted from the reproduced moving image information. The read digital watermark information is output from 214 and is used for processing for protecting the copyright of the moving image information 213 that is sequentially output from 212 and reproduced.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, as in the third embodiment, the same effects as in the first embodiment can be obtained for moving picture information to be intra-frame encoded and inter-frame encoded. In addition, since the digital watermark information is embedded in the area where the change of the image is the largest in the four frames from I to P3, the digital watermark information embedded in the image can be made less noticeable.

[0062]

[Other Embodiments] The present invention is applied to a system including a plurality of devices (for example, a host computer, an interface device, a reader, a printer, etc.). Facsimile machine, etc.).

Further, an object of the present invention is to supply a storage medium (or a recording medium) in which a program code of software for realizing the functions of the above-described embodiments is recorded to a system or an apparatus, and a computer (a computer) of the system or the apparatus. It is needless to say that the present invention can also be achieved by a CPU or an MPU) reading and executing the program code stored in the storage medium. In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium implements the functions of the above-described embodiment, and the storage medium storing the program code constitutes the present invention. Also,
When the computer executes the readout program code, not only the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized, but also the operating system (OS) running on the computer based on the instructions of the program code.
It is needless to say that a case in which the functions of the above-described embodiments are implemented by performing part or all of the actual processing.

Further, after the program code read from the storage medium is written into the memory provided in the function expansion card inserted into the computer or the function expansion unit connected to the computer, the program code is read based on the instruction of the program code. Needless to say, the CPU included in the function expansion card or the function expansion unit performs part or all of the actual processing, and the processing realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments.

When the present invention is applied to the storage medium, the storage medium stores program codes corresponding to the flowcharts described above.

[0066]

As described above, according to the present invention,
It is possible to minimize deterioration of digital information when decoding digital information in which predetermined information is embedded and encoded.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram for explaining embedding and separation of a digital watermark;

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of dividing a frame of a moving image;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an example of a circuit configuration for encoding moving image information and adding digital watermark information;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing an example of a circuit configuration for reproducing moving image information from code data to which digital watermark information has been added;

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating an example of an image compression encoding process in which information in one frame of a television image is divided into four two-dimensional blocks, and each block is encoded and transmitted.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing processing when reproducing encoded moving image data;

FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a circuit configuration for adding digital watermark information in a system that performs intra-frame encoding and inter-frame encoding.

FIG. 8 is a diagram for explaining intra-frame encoding and inter-frame encoding.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a circuit configuration for adding digital watermark information in a system that performs intra-frame encoding and inter-frame encoding.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a circuit configuration for reproducing moving image information from code data to which digital watermark information has been added.

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page F term (reference) 5C059 KK43 MA04 MC26 RC31 RC35 SS20 TB04 TC18 TC25 UA02 5C063 DA07 DA13 DA20 5J064 AA01 BA15 BB05 BC01 BC02 BC14 BC29 BD02 CA01 CB12 CB14 CC07 5J104 AA14 PA05 PA14

Claims (13)

[Claims] A dividing means for dividing digital information into coding unit information; a detecting means for detecting coding unit information having a maximum code amount when each of the divided coding unit information is coded; Embedding means for embedding predetermined information in coding unit information that becomes the maximum code amount when coding; coding unit information in which the predetermined information is embedded, and other coding unit information An information processing apparatus, comprising: an encoding unit for encoding. 2. The digital information is moving picture information,
2. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the coding unit is obtained by dividing an image area of one frame into a plurality of blocks. 3. The information processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the predetermined information is embedded in one of blocks obtained by dividing an image area of a frame to be intra-coded. 4. A block detecting a block having a maximum code amount based on a total code amount of divided blocks in a series of intra-frame encoded frames and a plurality of inter-frame encoded frames. 4. The information processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein 5. An encoding apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising an adding unit for adding, to the encoding unit information encoded by said encoding unit, information indicating encoding unit information in which information of said predetermined information is embedded. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein 6. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined information is digital watermark information. 7. The digital information is divided into coding unit information, the coding unit information having the maximum code amount is detected when each of the divided coding unit information is coded, and the coding unit information is maximum when coding is performed. An information processing method, wherein predetermined information is embedded in coding unit information having a code amount of, and coding unit information in which the predetermined information is embedded, and other coding unit information are respectively encoded. . 8. The digital information is moving image information,
8. The information processing method according to claim 7, wherein the coding unit is obtained by dividing an image area of one frame into a plurality of blocks. 9. The information processing method according to claim 8, wherein the predetermined information is embedded in one of blocks obtained by dividing an image area of a frame to be intra-coded. 10. A block having a maximum code amount is detected based on a total code amount of divided blocks in a series of intra-coded frames and a plurality of inter-coded frames. 10. The information processing method according to claim 8, wherein: 11. The information according to claim 7, further comprising adding, to the encoded coding unit information, information indicating coding unit information in which the information of the predetermined information is embedded. Processing method. 12. The information processing method according to claim 6, wherein the predetermined information is digital watermark information. 13. A recording medium on which a program code for information processing is recorded, wherein the program code includes at least a code for a step of dividing digital information into a plurality of pieces of coding unit information; A code of a step for detecting coding unit information having a maximum code amount when each is encoded, and a code of a step of embedding predetermined information in the coding unit information which becomes the maximum code amount when encoding. A recording medium comprising: coding unit information in which the predetermined information is embedded; and a code for coding each of the other coding unit information.