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Methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture for performing data insertion in compressed audio/video data streams are disclosed. A disclosed method receives a digital data stream containing a plurality of compressed media streams associated with a plurality of different media programs and generat

Methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture for performing data insertion in compressed audio/video data streams are disclosed. A disclosed method receives a digital data stream containing a plurality of compressed media streams associated with a plurality of different media programs and generates information to be inserted in at least one of the compressed media streams. The disclosed method identifies frames of compressed data associated with the at least one of the compressed media streams and inserts the information in at least some of the identified frames of compressed data without performing a decompression operation on the compressed data and by changing locations or values of data bits within the at least some of the identified frames.

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What is claimed is: 1. A method of inserting information in a digital data stream, comprising: receiving a digital data stream containing a plurality of compressed media streams associated with a plurality of different media programs; generating information to be inserted in at least one of the com

What is claimed is: 1. A method of inserting information in a digital data stream, comprising: receiving a digital data stream containing a plurality of compressed media streams associated with a plurality of different media programs; generating information to be inserted in at least one of the compressed media streams; identifying frames of compressed data associated with the at least one of the compressed media streams; inserting the information in at least some of the identified frames of compressed data without performing a decompression operation on the compressed data and by rearranging skip bytes to enlarge an auxiliary data field within the at least some of the identified frames, the information being encoded and inserted into the enlarged auxiliary data field to allow at least one of an amount or an order of the inserted information to vary among the at least some of the identified frames; and also inserting the information as watermark data accompanying media content included in the at least some of the identified frames. 2. A method as defined in claim 1, further comprising: demultiplexing the digital data stream into the plurality of compressed media streams; extracting program information associated with the plurality of programs from the plurality of compressed media streams; modifying the program information; and multiplexing the plurality of compressed media streams with the modified program information to regenerate a modified version of the digital data stream. 3. A method as defined in claim 1, wherein also inserting the information as watermark data comprises changing the values of data bits within the at least some of the identified frames by changing transform coefficient values. 4. A method as defined in claim 1, wherein also inserting the information as watermark data comprises changing the values of the data bits within the at least some of the identified frames by sending audio payload data to a watermarking operation. 5. A method as defined in claim 4, wherein the watermarking operation comprises buffering non-audio payload data with placeholders for the audio payload data, watermarking the audio payload data, and populating the watermarked audio payload data in the frames using the placeholders. 6. A method as defined in claim 1, wherein generating the information to be inserted comprises generating at least one of audience measurement information, metadata, or interactive data. 7. A system for inserting information in a digital data stream, comprising: a processor coupled to a memory and programmed to: receive a digital data stream containing a plurality of compressed media streams associated with a plurality of different media programs; generate information to be inserted in at least one of the compressed media streams; identify frames of compressed data associated with the at least one of the compressed media streams; insert the information in at least some of the identified frames of compressed data without performing a decompression operation on the compressed data and by rearranging skip bytes to enlarge an auxiliary data field within the at least some of the identified frames, the information being encoded into a plurality of data fields, at least some of the plurality of data fields being reordered prior to insertion into the enlarged auxiliary data field to allow an order of the inserted information to vary among the at least some of the identified frames. 8. A system as defined in claim 7, wherein the processor is programmed to: demultiplex the digital data stream into the plurality of compressed media streams; extract program information associated with the plurality of programs from the plurality of compressed media streams; modify the program information; and multiplex the plurality of compressed media streams with the modified program information to regenerate a modified version of the digital data stream. 9. A system as defined in claim 7, wherein the processor is programmed to insert the information in at least some of the identified frames by inserting watermark information. 10. A system as defined in claim 7, wherein the processor is programmed to change the values of data bits within the at least some of the identified frames by changing transform coefficient values. 11. A system as defined in claim 7, wherein the processor is programmed to change the values of data bits within the at least some of the identified frames by sending audio payload data to a watermarking operation. 12. A system as defined in claim 11, wherein the watermarking operation comprises buffering non-audio payload data with placeholders for the audio payload data, watermarking the audio payload data, and populating the watermarked audio payload data in the frames using the placeholders. 13. A system as defined in claim 7, wherein the processor is programmed to generate the information to be inserted by generating at least one of audience measurement information, metadata, or interactive data. 14. A tangible machine readable medium, other than a propagating signal, having instructions stored thereon that, when executed, cause a machine to: receive a digital data stream containing a plurality of compressed media streams associated with a plurality of different media programs; generate information to be inserted in at least one of the compressed media streams; identify frames of compressed data associated with the at least one of the compressed media streams; insert the information in at least some of the identified frames of compressed data without performing a decompression operation on the compressed data and by rearranging skip bytes to enlarge an auxiliary data field within the at least some of the identified frames, the information being encoded into a plurality of data fields, at least some of the plurality of data fields being reordered prior to insertion into the enlarged auxiliary data field to allow an order of the inserted information to vary among the at least some of the identified frames; and also insert the information as watermark data accompanying media content included in the at least some of the identified frames. 15. A machine readable medium as defined in claim 14 having instructions stored thereon that, when executed, cause the machine to: demultiplex the digital data stream into the plurality of compressed media streams; extract program information associated with the plurality of programs from the plurality of compressed media streams; modify the program information; and multiplex the plurality of compressed media streams with the modified program information to regenerate a modified version of the digital data stream. 16. A machine readable medium as defined in claim 14 having instructions stored thereon that, when executed, cause the machine to change the values of data bits within the at least some of the identified frames by changing transform coefficient values to also insert the information as watermark data. 17. A machine readable medium as defined in claim 14 having instructions stored thereon that, when executed, cause the machine change the values of data bits within the at least some of the identified frames by sending audio payload data to a watermarking operation. 18. A machine readable medium as defined in claim 17, wherein the watermarking operation comprises buffering non-audio payload data with placeholders for the audio payload data, watermarking the audio payload data, and populating the watermarked audio payload data in the frames using the placeholders. 19. A machine readable medium as defined in claim 14 having instructions stored thereon that, when executed, cause the machine to generate the information to be inserted by generating at least one of audience measurement information, metadata, or interactive data. 20. An apparatus for inserting information in a digital data stream, comprising: an encoder configured to provide a first compressed media stream; a multiplexer coupled to the encoder and configured to multiplex the first compressed media stream with at least one other compressed data stream to form a multiplexed data stream; and a data inserter coupled to the multiplexer and configured to insert the information in frames of compressed data without performing a decompression operation on the compressed data and by rearranging skip bytes to enlarge an auxiliary data field, the data inserter configured to also insert the information as watermark data accompanying media content included in the frames of compressed data. 21. An apparatus as defined in claim 20, wherein the encoder is an MPEG encoder. 22. An apparatus as defined in claim 20, wherein the at least one other compressed data stream contains program and system information protocol data. 23. An apparatus as defined in claim 20, wherein the multiplexer is serially interposed between the encoder and the data inserter. 24. An apparatus as defined in claim 20, wherein the digital data stream contains a plurality of video programs. 25. An apparatus as defined in claim 20, wherein the frames of compressed data are compressed audio frames. 26. An apparatus as defined in claim 20, wherein the data inserter is configured to: demultiplex the digital data stream into a plurality of compressed media streams; extract program information associated with the plurality of programs from the plurality of compressed media streams; modify the program information; and multiplex the plurality of compressed media streams with the modified program information to regenerate a modified version of the digital data stream. 27. An apparatus as defined in claim 20, wherein the data inserter is configured to change the values of data bits within the frames by changing transform coefficient values to also insert the information as watermark data. 28. An apparatus as defined in claim 20, wherein the data inserter is configured to change the values of data bits within the frames by sending audio payload data to a watermarking operation. 29. An apparatus as defined in claim 28, wherein the watermarking operation comprises buffering non-audio payload data with placeholders for the audio payload data, watermarking the audio payload data, and populating the watermarked audio payload data in the frames using the placeholders. 30. An apparatus system as defined in claim 20, wherein the inserted information comprises at least one of audience measurement information, metadata, or interactive data.