Axis 210/211 User Manual

14 AXIS 210/211 - Video StreamsVideo StreamsThe AXIS 210/211 provides several different image and video stream formats. The type touse depends on your requirements and on the properties of your network.The Live View page in the AXIS 210/211 provides access to Motion JPEG and MPEG-4video streams, as well as to single JPEG images. Other applications and clients can alsoaccess these video streams/images directly, without going via the Live View page.Stream TypesMotion JPEGThis format uses standard JPEG still images for the video stream. These images are thendisplayed and updated at a rate sufficient to create a stream that shows constantly updatedmotion.The Motion JPEG stream uses considerable amounts of bandwidth, but also providesexcellent image quality and access to each and every individual image contained in thestream.Note also that multiple clients accessing Motion JPEG streams can use different imagesettings.MPEG-4This is a video compression standard that makes good use of bandwidth, and which canprovide high-quality video streams at less than 1 Mbit/s.Notes: •MPEG-4 is licensed technology. The AXIS 210/211 includes one viewing client license.Installing additional unlicensed copies of the viewing client is prohibited. To purchase addi-tional licenses, contact your Axis reseller.•All clients viewing the MPEG-4 stream must use the same image settings.The MPEG-4 standard provides scope for a large range of different coding tools for use byvarious applications in different situations, and the AXIS 210/211 provides certain subsetsof these tools. These are represented as Video object types, which are selected for use withdifferent viewing clients. The supported video object types are:• Simple - sets the coding type to H.263, as used by e.g. QuickTime™.• Advanced Simple - sets the coding type to MPEG-4 Part 2, as used by AMC (AXISMedia Control)When using MPEG-4 it is also possible to control the bit rate, which in turn allows theamount of bandwidth usage to be controlled. CBR (constant bit rate) is used to achieve aspecific bit rate by varying the quality of the MPEG-4 stream. When using VBR (variablebit rate), the quality of the video stream is kept as constant as possible, at the cost of avarying bit rate.