Real-Time Steganographic Tool for Secure Data Transmission in Live Video Streams Using AES Encryption

The growing demand for secure and undetectable communication channels has brought video steganography into focus as a vital technique for information concealment. Traditional methods often rely on static images or pre-recorded videos, which lack real-time applicability and suffer from limited capacity, weak encryption, or detectable visual artifacts. These limitations pose a risk in high-stakes environments where confidentiality and stealth are paramount. To address these challenges, this work proposes a real-time video steganographic system that integrates least significant bit (LSB) embedding with AES-128 encryption. The tool supports both uploaded and live-recorded videos, ensuring encrypted messages are securely embedded at the pixel level with minimal impact on visual quality. Optional SHA-256 hashing provides integrity validation during message retrieval. Comprehensive evaluations across various resolutions and durations demonstrate strong performance in terms of message fidelity, computational efficiency, and perceptual transparency. The system achieves low embedding times, efficient memory usage, and high PSNR/SSIM values, making it suitable for secure multimedia communication in dynamic, real-world scenarios.