H.264 compression helps solve two of the biggest problems in using IP video surveillance – bandwidth and storage usage.
As we see when we buy PC’s, more storage costs more money. With networked video, the costs for storage can add up quickly as video requires much more storage than traditional PC applications like word processing and PDF’s. It’s not uncommon for storage costs to be hundreds of dollars for each video surveillance camera used.
As we realize when we use mobile phones or try to download large files, often there is not enough bandwidth available for our needs. Making this more difficult, it’s often hard or not possible to substantially increase our bandwidth. This is a particular problem with video surveillance that routinely needs lots of bandwidth.
To reduce storage and bandwidth use, video applications use compression technologies or CODEC’s. Many CODEC’s exist including Windows Media Video (WMV), MPEG-2, MPEG-4, Flash Video and H.264. Newer CODECs tend to reduce storage and bandwidth at the expense of greater CPU use. This is usually worth it because CPUs are getting more powerful faster than other computing resources.
H.264 is the latest major CODEC delivering reduced bandwidth and storage consumption. Compared to the 2 other frequently used CODECs in video surveillance (MJPEG and MPEG-4), the savings can be significant. Relative to MJPEG, storage reduction averages 80% while compared to MPEG-4 it is approximately 30%. [Note: the exact details varies by manufacturer and implementation.]
The biggest benefit is likely for megapixel cameras. Up until 2008, megapixel cameras almost always used only MJPEG. Now, with H.264, megapixel camera storage and bandwidth costs are dropping significantly. Megapixel camera use is growing dramatically and is certainly being driven by the savings new H.264 versions provide.
About the Author
John Honovich is the founder of IP Video Market Info. John researches and writes extensively for IP Video Market Info, providing analysis of new video surveillance technologies and emerging products.
