The Challenge

Digital surveillance video must be compressed before being transmitted, integrated, and viewed. The challenge is choosing a single way to compress the video. Frame-based MJPEG compression is better for forensic analysis, but creates a large data stream. Stream-based MPEG-4 compression is better for viewing with PDAs or making redundant archives, but loses interframe data. How can you do both with the same original video feed while not consuming network capacity needlessly?

The Solution

The BroadWare Media Transcoder (BMT) converts an MJPEG video stream to MPEG-4 in real time. This means you can store video on site at very high quality MJPEG for analysis while selectively transcoding any cameras to MPEG-4 for viewing over a PDA or remote, low-bandwidth connection. You can even control PTZ cameras via the transcoded MPEG-4 connection. In addition you can create redundant archives at secure locations for selected cameras using MPEG-4 for lower bandwidth and storage consumption without sacrificing the high quality local archives.

BMT can:

• Encode multiple streams simultaneously
• Handle 4-CIF to Q-CIF MJPEG input resolution
• Create MPEG-4 streams at 5-15 fps, 100-500 Kbps
• Control pan-tilt-zoom cameras through PDAs or computers