White Paper: Video Compression for CCTV

1 Bosch Security Systems paper : Video Compression for CCTVOver the last few years, the analog Video signal from surveillance cameras has been increasingly digitized for archivingand transmission purposes. This article provides an overview of the methods currently available for digitization and datacompression, and considers the advantages and disadvantages of their use in cctv digital Video signal provides many advantages over analog signals: digital signals can be processed using computers orsignal processors and transmitted via digital networks.

2 Transmission via existing (phone) lines and non-wearing recordingon hard disks are promoting the trend toward digital Video signals. Because a digitized Video signal has a very high datatransfer rate of 216 Mbit/s (according to CCIR 601), suitable data Compression methods must be used for processing andtransmission. Imagine, an entire DVD, capable of storing about 8 GB of data, would store less than five minutes of algorithms have been developed for various applications at an international level. These algorithms havebeen tested and standardized by several organizations.

3 The methods are alternatives to a certain extent, because theywere developed with different aims and are tailored to specific applications. Overall, the range of available standardizedvideo Compression methods covers practically all (1 IPS)Standard( - IPS)Full Motion(30 IPS)Bitrate /MbpsFramerateM-JPEGMPEG-4 MPEG-2 Wavelet0482610 High(15 IPS)MPEG-4 Sp re adMPEG-2 SpreadM-JPEG SpreadWave let Sp readComparison of the Performance of Different Video CompressionAlgorithms at Various FrameratesSource: Dr Bob Banerjee and Justin Lott, Bosch Security Systems, 2005 Some Compression algorithms permit a degree of variation within the standard to meet technology constraints.

4 The mostcommon Video Compression methods use the statistical similarity of adjacent pixels. The image is converted to afrequency space block by block using the DCT (Discrete Cosine Transformation). In Video coding, it is also possible to usethe strong time correlation of consecutive frames the objects shown are usually static or move in a more or lessconstant manner. If the difference between the images is calculated with motion estimation, it is only necessary to transferthe changes from frame to Security Systems Comparison Table of Compression AlgorithmsCompressionStrengthsWeaknessId eal ApplicationsJPEGAn industry standard, meaning that acamera they can generate JPEGs is likely tobe viewable by the largest range of videomanagement noticeable degradation at with very active easy to implement trick-play(play/ pause /rewind / forward wind/ stepfwd/rev etc.)

5 Under high compressionratios the Video at compressingquiet-moderate of 8 Mbps arevery common, whichmakes it hard to transmitbut almost unaffordable tostoreStoring photographs or snapshotsfrom a videoVery low framrate cctv (<5 IPS) butwith high scene-activity Bosch s DiBos v7 Hybrid as JPEG, except the JPEG imagesare payed in rapid per per JPEG, but particularly commonin cctv due to its s popularity has caused the cctv market to accept low framerates ( ) as the norm . the same as MPEG, butoptimized for 2-way low latencytransmission via 128 kbps (2 ISDN B channels) imagequality and image refresh rate performance whenhigher bandwidths conferencing of its large range ofbandwidth (from 64 to 1920kbit/s), it can be used in almost allother media (LAN, WAN) for low data transfer rates(below 64 kbps).

6 Low performance whenhigher bandwidths via GSM mobilenetwork, modem and analogtelephone quality Video on extremely cheap quality is consideredby many as anunreasonable cost Video CDs (VCDs).The audio component (so-calledAudio Layer 3) of MPEG-1 hasbecome known as best quality Video modern cctv systems can ,typically Mbps quality Video , DVDs, LANTV, high-fidelity stereo Bosch s VideoJet 8000 and VIP1000 encoder and (Part 2)Very efficient at high framerates when thedifference between subsequent is typically 100-1,000 kbps efficiency at very lowframerates or extremelyhigh scene the bitrate is limitedthe Video artifacts arespeckling and a , especially when a highframerate is used, or when themajority of scene activity is low Bosch s VIP X1 and VIP XDencoder and Bosch s DiBos v8 Hybrid Security Systems ( MPEG-4 Part 10)

7 Promising broadcast-oriented technologythat is more efficient than current MPEG-4 Part 2 High power processinghardware required andhigher lag-timesNext generation MPEG-4, to be usedon HD DVDs, HDTV and s new XBOX 360 gamesconsole is expected to use HD DVD,offering 15 GB looks great even under highcompression because the human eyeaccepts a fuzzy picture more than extremecompression the videobecomes fuzzy anddiffused, not betweendiffererent Bosch s Compression ratios for images thathave large areas of repetition, sky,water to compress,requiring betweendiffererent photographic Compression , a photo on a smart-cardidentity card, where Compression timeis summarizing the pros and cons of each of the mainstream Compression algorithmsStorage Space vs.

8 Transmission BandwidthThere are two primary reasons to compress Video : To reduce the amount of of storage space required to store the Video so that more hours of Video can be storedon various media including hard disk drives, solid state memory, CDs and DVDs plus many more. Storage istypically measured in bytes (B), Kilobytes (kB), Megabytes (MB), Gigabytes (GB) and Terabytes (TB). To reduce the bandwidth required to transmit the Video across digital connections including local and wide-area IPnetworks, the Internet, SCSI connections and USB connections plus many more.

9 Bandwidth is typically measuredin bits per seond (bps or baud), Kilobits per second (kbps), Megabits per second (Mbps) and Gigabits per second(Gbps).In the first generation digital systems DVRs replaced VCRs, and so the market became familiar with units that reflectstorage needs, kB and MB etc. However in the second generation systems transmission across networks became soimportant that units like kbps and Mbps also became about the flow rate of data requires a small shift in thinking and some people get hung up about themathematical differences.

10 In order to understand the rest of this White paper we should make sure we are completelycomfortable with a few and BytesAs far as cctv is concerned a byte is simply 8 bits. So, a 1 MB compact flash card can store 1 MB (one Megabyte) or 8Mb (eight Megabits) of data. They are exactly the same. Similarly a 100 Megabit Ethernet connection, also known as fastEthernet, can carry either 100 Mbps (one hundred Megabits per second) or MBps ( Megabytes per second) example below shows that you will arrive at the same result whichever way you prefer.