Is All H.264 Equal???

June 24, 2011 at 1:48 am Leave a comment

First lets answer the question of why is H.264 (MPEG4 Part 10) so important?

Simply put- 10 to 20 times reduction in both video stream Bandwidth as well as Storage (stored images on disk.) H.264 saves money in terms of storage and networking costs associated with bandwidth and allows system designers to either utilize more cameras or Better Cameras ( MegaPixel) within Bandwidth/ Storage/ per dollar parameters.

The real world of stretched budgets forces smart system designers to use H.264 compression products to maximize value and deliver maximum ROI.

Now is all H.264 compression equal? The answer is NO.

There are two approaches to H.264. One is fast and simple approach consisting of purchasing an ‘off the shelf’ H.264 algorithm. The other is approach is to take the documented standard and building your implementation from scratch.

Most of the products on the market fall into the “buy it off the shelf” camp for reasons such as cost and speed to market. There a few such a Arecont Vision that have taken the road less traveled and have developed a H.264 algorithm that is standards based but far more efficient than that of their competition.

I won’t go into the technical details as Dr Michael Korkin has a white paper describing in great detail the Arecont H.264 implementation and the ‘hidden cost of H.264.

http://netcentricsecurity.com/Articles/2009/10/01/H.264-Facts-and-Fiction.aspx