As the old adage says, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” and there may be few areas where this is more applicable than in video surveillance. Camera manufacturers’ constant and continuing “resolution race” is creating larger video file sizes that can place significant burdens on bandwidth and storage requirements. Transferring these larger files requires end users to make larger investments in solutions, which drives up overall video system costs — often substantially.
The necessity in this case is the need to reduce these costs and make high-quality video affordable to a wider customer base. This need has borne the invention of a variety of compression technologies designed to reduce file sizes while retaining the quality images users expect from their cameras.