Simon Hall

To clarify, the MOBOTIX ONVIF/H.264 roll out plan is as follows: - Step 1. release MxMultiviewer to allow integration of MOBOTIX and ONVIF/H.264 (non-MOBOTIX) devices under one central software platform - Step 2. incorporate H.264 into MOBOTIX cameras (announced by MOBOTIX in a March 2015 press conference) On 23 January 2015, ONVIF welcomed MOBOTIX in as a full member, so after step 2 is in place, implementing ONVIF compliance with their hardware would seem to be the logical corollary. No official date has been announced for this third step.

MOBOTIX recently announced their soon to be released software platform, MxMultiViewer, will allow the integration of ONVIF and H.264 IP video devices. This means both MOBOTIX and third party IP cameras can be integrated under one platform (for both OS X and Windows). The word is MOBOTIX have plans to also introduce the ONVIF/H.264 integration within an iOS app, which will resolve the OP's requirement. There has been no official launch date from MOBOTIX for MxMultiViewer but a beta version has already been made available, which indicates it's not too far off. pTSWDRe703I

MOBOTIX recently announced they will be integrating ONVIF and H.264 within their new software platform pTSWDRe703I

The M15 production was delayed, with its official release back in June 2013... We have published a video tutorial of the MOBOTIX M15, that includes the hardware specs here >> MOBOTIX M15 Hardware Overview

Here are three tutorials showing how to set up a decentralized IP camera for NAS recording: Record to a QNAP NAS Record to a Netgear NAS Record to a Synology NAS

Learn how to setup automatic switching between Exposure settings, so that the MOBOTIX camera can capture better quality images during day and night illumination. To learn more refer to pages 29-37 of this new automatic exposure settings tutorial in our latest ANPR guide http://www.mxinstaller.com/blog/mobotix-anpr-guide-v2/

If anyone is having recording issues, please refer this tutorial which covers best practice for setting up MOBOTIX recording http://www.mxinstaller.com/tag/boost-recording-and-playback/

This is an old post, but wanted to clarify something separate to the OP's question... He set up MOBOTIX cameras to record to a QNAP "VS" NAS. The VioStor series NAS has recording software installed. Note - if you only have MOBOTIX cameras recording on the system please do not buy NVRs. The NVRs proprietary database often interferes with the MxPEG image recording quality and the limits the camera's functionality. My advice is to just record directly to NAS - in this case the QNAP "TS" series would be a better choice for MOBOTIX.

All the answers to the OPs questions are found here... http://www.mxinstaller.com/tag/mobotix-qnap/

Good point to clarify...thanks buellwinkle H.264 for VoIP (telephony video) streaming yes, which H.264 is great for, but not recommend for surveillance recording.

Firstly I want to apologize to the OP (USA Ed) and the community for the emotional hijacking...I know the original post is 2010, but I would like to get this back on the topic of "MOBOTIX vs H.264" (in terms of surveillance recording), as it's an important one. I want to offer some usable information to those who have clicked to get answers on the subject. Here's two interesting articles I would recommend...I will be back with some more later... JPEG2000, MJPEG, MPEG and H.264 in the security environment http://www.initsys.net/attachments/Compression%20and%20DigitisationPDF.pdf This is an interesting read which includes quotes from the MPEG committee with their thoughts on using H.264 and MPEG codecs in surveillance. H.264 considerations http://www.iqeye.com/iqeye/H.264_Considerations.pdf Article by vendor IQInvision who manufacture megapixel IP cameras. (quote) "Select H.264 when your requirements dictate that saving bandwidth is more important than consistent image quality or predictability in bandwidth or storage needs."

Maybe you have not been in communique with an ad rep from MacWorld - they actively engage potential advertisers on how they can promote third party products to the Apple community - it's a great model and creates win/win for both vendor and reader. Most of Macworld's content is about what-else-works-with-Apple. BTW that is not our mission statement, it's one of the many services we provide to vendors to enable us to fund MxInstaller magazine, so that it can be distributed to the community free of charge. I addressed your comments relating to the tutorial and MxPEG, for the rest of the community, because they were incorrect.

MxInstaller to MOBOTIX is like what Macworld is to Apple...no more - no less. The Hidden Cost of H.264 tutorial does not in anyway suggest that the decentralized recording platform is achieved through implementing MxPEG. To clarify - the merits of MOBOTIX camera's being able to write in a recording database format direct to storage, is because the VMS is installed in the cameras not a computer. It's this attribute that enables the cameras to write directly to a file share. You might want to check out a YouTube tutorial which explains this further. The purpose of the The Hidden Cost of H.264 tutorial is to primarily highlight key issues at the source and head-end. The high cost of using H.264 in video surveillance is created because most IP camera systems are centralized, so all recordings must be streamed to a central NVR - unless you don't want storage, event handling and recording database management. High resolutions centralized recording systems require high cost PC/Servers, not to mentioned licensed VMS which can cost anyway up to $200+ per camera license for the privilege of being able to record. In these systems the bandwidth advantages to H.264 become irrelevant because the cameras have to stream the data to a central point on the network. You could of course deploy NVRs at the edge but that - again - is expensive. There are of course other issues with using H.264 which have become more apparent over time. These are excellent examples of the inherent qualities of MxPEG, which were required outcomes factored in during the development process, but what you have listed are not the "real reason" why MOBOTIX developed MxPEG. The real reason is two-fold... 1. Frame-for-frame capture MPEG codecs are great for streaming but inappropriate for surveillance. MOBOTIX saw that a codec needed to be developed specifically for the requirements of surveillance, designed to capture and record frame-for-frame movement and scene changes in high quality. 2. Scaling Being non-CPU intensive, MxPEG enables systems to up-scale in camera numbers and resolution with minimal impact on hardware. EDIT... For anyone else who may be confused about the key points in this video, below, we have broken it down: vQaTjSs0cvc Timeline 1:29 -2:20 Powerpoint slide from an Axis presentation showing the encoding/decoding of H.264 has higher complexity requiring more CPU power. 2:20 - 2:41 In a centralized surveillance it's the processing requirements and cost server-side, that represents the hidden cost of H.264 2:42 - 3:54 CPU requirements for recording using Axis VMS, based on Axis Camera Station calculations 3:55 - 5:16 CPU requirements for recording using Milestone XProtect calculator 5:56 - Cost of server-side is lower with a decentralised system because of lower coding complexity, no VMS licensing, no PC/Server required. H.264 further compounds the costs associated server side in a centralized system. Key points • H.264 IP cameras are designed for centralized systems requiring dedicated servers, licensed software and high CPU to process. H.264 has brought with it unprecedented complexity that requires more processing power, thus more cost, server-side, than ever before - which many are not aware of. (These costs had, back in 2008, not been openly addressed.) • The MOBOTIX decentralised platform, enables direct-record-to-storage recording which is made possible by the VMS in the camera, not MxPEG. • MOBOTIX has the ability to record to any type of storage media - no dedicated VMS server required • The MxPEG codec requires very little hardware processing as compared to H.264 I would also recommend this video as a follow to explain further the decentralized IP video concept.

I understand that VRM manages traffic for the purposes of storage management. I mentioned VRM in the context of NVR, as Bosch charge a license fee for VRM. You don't have any licensing fees with MOBOTIX. The central storage management feature applied by VRM, to prevent storage overwriting etc, is already built into the MOBOTIX camera. I believe the load balancing can and should be handled by the storage unit without additional cost applied by the camera vendor. Most quality storage devices will offer this as standard. MOBOTIX don't peddle iSCSI or any other defined storage platform, as the cameras can direct-record to any and all standard digital storage media.