Source digital camcorder identification using sensor photo response non-uniformity

Photo-response non-uniformity (PRNU) of digital sensors was recently proposed [1] as a unique identification fingerprint for digital cameras. The PRNU extracted from a specific image can be used to link it to the digital camera that took the image. Because digital camcorders use the same imaging sensors, in this paper, we extend this technique for identification of digital camcorders from video clips. We also investigate the problem of determining whether two video clips came from the same camcorder and the problem of whether two differently transcoded versions of one movie came from the same camcorder. The identification technique is a joint estimation and detection procedure consisting of two steps: (1) estimation of PRNUs from video clips using the Maximum Likelihood Estimator and (2) detecting the presence of PRNU using normalized cross-correlation. We anticipate this technology to be an essential tool for fighting piracy of motion pictures. Experimental results demonstrate the reliability and generality of our approach.