What are the differences between fingerprinting and watermarking?

Watermarking:  Embed a unique identifier (sometimes refered to as payload or ID Tag) in audio or video content,  imperceptible to the human ear and eye:

• subtle modification of content by adding identification data
• allow the precise identification of each piece of content
• stand alone

Fingerprinting: Extract the unique features of audio or video content, and compared those against reference fingerprints previously stored in a database

• content is not affected
• works for legacy content
• connection to database required

An important point highlighting the main difference between both technologies is that fingerprinting technology is capable of identifying existing video material that is currently in circulation; whereas watermarking requires information to be embedded into the video content prior to release.


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