New dynamic frame rate saves more storage and bandwidth

Axis Communications has introduced an enhancement of its award-winning Zipstream video compression technology. It now dynamically adjusts the frame rate, instantly adapting to any changes in the scene. The new dynamic frame rate feature offers significant additional bandwidth and storage savings for video surveillance applications.

“Ensuring that important image details are captured at all times is what really counts for our customers. Being able to reduce the bitrate to almost zero when there is no activity means you get everything you need with less of what you don’t. We are working very closely with our partners and customers listening to ideas and suggestions for improvements to our Zipstream technology. One area where we have seen particularly strong demand for even further reduction of bandwidth and storage consumption is that of continuous recording of scenes with changing activity levels,” says Johan Paulsson, Chief Technology Officer, Axis Communications. “That's what we have achieved with the latest enhancement of Zipstream.”

Zipstream offers significant cost savings as less storage is needed and existing storage can be used more effectively. It allows customers to make use of a camera's full resolution and advanced image processing capabilities such as Wide Dynamic Range (WDR) or Axis’ Lightfinder technology while at the same time significantly reducing bandwidth and storage requirements. For edge storage applications where video surveillance footage is stored on SD memory cards inside the cameras, the increased retention time is a clear advantage. For cloud storage applications, the reduction in bandwidth consumption allows for more reliable uploads and reduces broadband connection costs.

Important forensic details like faces, tattoos or license plates are isolated and preserved by Zipstream, while irrelevant areas such as white walls, lawns and vegetation are sacrificed by smoothing in order to achieve the desired bandwidth and storage savings. The latest enhancement of the Zipstream technology adds the concept of dynamic FPS (frames per second) to optimise the video stream's bit rate as an addition to the concepts of dynamic ROI (region of interest) and dynamic GOP (Group of Pictures) being used in existing Zipstream technology. Users have full control over the settings and can customise Zipstream to optimally meet their specific video surveillance needs.