Mpeg4

denis · Post by **denis** » Wed Aug 22, 2007 10:22 am

what is the state of mpeg4 support?
there is someone that is working on that?

thanks!

robi · Post by **robi** » Wed Aug 22, 2007 12:23 pm

mpeg4 would be important in the aspect of supporting mpeg4-based IP cameras.

Lots of these IP cameras are available very cheaply.

jameswilson · Post by **jameswilson** » Wed Aug 22, 2007 12:32 pm

mpeg4 or any other conditional refresh system has serious implications. I for one prefer jpeg, yes it needs more space but the image quality is better and hard disks aint exactly dear. Mpeg would be of no use for me personally except for live monitoring, everything else should be jpeg IMHO

denis · Post by **denis** » Wed Aug 22, 2007 12:50 pm

jameswilson wrote:mpeg4 or any other conditional refresh system has serious implications. I for one prefer jpeg, yes it needs more space but the image quality is better and hard disks aint exactly dear. Mpeg would be of no use for me personally except for live monitoring, everything else should be jpeg IMHO

i'm thinking to bandwidth and to disk space.
also some cheaper IP cameras have builtin for mjpeg and mpeg4
but mjpeg is implemented without any standard
(such trendnet IP301), so i'm hoping that mpeg4 is implemented
in some better way

Lee Sharp · Post by **Lee Sharp** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 2:44 am

It will result in a poorer picture. There is no way to get the quality still frames from a mpeg stream. This, for me, is the primary selling point of zoneminder. We store high quality pictures, not low quality streams. I vote not to support hardware that will result in a degradation of zoneminder quality.

robi · Post by **robi** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 8:03 am

Agree with you all, but the market of MPEG4-only IP cameras is growing very quickly. If ZM doesn't catch up to support these, the other teeny-weeny Winblows similar applications will gain space again.

Currently a MPEG4-only IP camera costs about three time less than a JPEG, or MJPEG capable camera. At least this is the situation in Europe.

denis · Post by **denis** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 12:12 pm

robi wrote: the other teeny-weeny Winblows similar applications will gain space again.

i only know luxriot...
what others?

Lee Sharp · Post by **Lee Sharp** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 7:42 pm

robi wrote:Currently a MPEG4-only IP camera costs about three time less than a JPEG, or MJPEG capable camera. At least this is the situation in Europe.

And the quality of the resulting still will be about 5 times less. Sometimes, you do get what you pay for.

But I see you point, There are always those that want "cheap at any cost" solution.

henke · Post by **henke** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 2:39 pm

I would need this very much for the bandwidth saving.

Post by **cordel** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 5:34 pm

ZM can already stram in MPEG just not capture from mpeg. I am with James and Lee where I would rather use up the disk space for the quility of the jpeg.

azir · Post by **azir** » Wed Mar 26, 2008 3:07 pm

In case of ZM currently cannot capture from MPEG, there would be some chance eg. using VLC (http://www.videolan.org) to capture from MPEG then stream it as JPEG so that ZM can handle it

jameswilson · Post by **jameswilson** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 10:43 pm

As above MPEG is not an ideal format for storage and has many issues.
MPEG is ideal for streaming, but jpeg for storage.
Maybe jpeg 2000 would be a better direction but that has its own implications

Post by **cordel** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 12:30 am

Actually mpeg is a great method of storage. It is smaller, the container provides for audio tracks, and is great for streaming... SO long as you don't mind losing allot of video detail.

mpeg capture is in the works, Phil has been working on it for the last couple years I think and will probably cause the next epoch in the version number.
Whether or not the storage will change from jpeg, I have no idea as jpeg is preferred by most to retain the detail, but it is also possible to create an mpeg container that holds mjpeg streams, no loss of detail and you can add audio tracks although not any better for streaming, it might not be much different than we are doing now. Although doing this would take allot more work so I don't see the containers going from jpeg snapshots to anything else very soon.

As for when, soon as Phil has a working alpha model, I'm sure he will put it out so we can work out the kinks and get it to beta, and stable but there is not even a rough idea when that will be, it could be a year or two. All depends on how much time he has to volunteer to working on it and how stubborn making it work reliably is.

jameswilson · Post by **jameswilson** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 4:02 pm

Actually mpeg is a great method of storage. It is smaller, the container provides for audio tracks, and is great for streaming... SO long as you don't mind losing allot of video detail.

lol

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