According to IMS Research, the digital video surveillance market is expected to grow by 36 percent annually from 2007 to 2012. Customers have become extremely aware of the possibilities within digital video surveillance, but the increased interest is accompanied by more stringent
demands on the technical performance of the cameras. HD is being spotlighted as the ultimate in picture quality, but the fact is that since 2007 the resolution of Mobotix cameras is far higher, claims the manufacturer.

"Our competitors are relying on technology which Mobotix already considers to be obsolete. Since 2007, the resolution of all our surveillance cameras has been 2048 * 1536 megapixel, whereas several of our competitors have just come out with a resolution of 1920*1080 megapixel", says Bo Ørbjerg, business development manager for Mobotix in the Nordic and Baltic countries.

There is no doubt that megapixel surveillance cameras are where the future lies, and Bo Ørbjerg knows very well that the other camera producers will be riding the wave too. Surveillance in megapixel presents challenges for the compression process, and the industry has developed the H.264 standard to accommodate these, but according to Bo Ørbjerg, this standard has one problem:

"The fact is that the H.264 standard requires eight times more processing power to decode images than Mobotix' codec, MxPEG, does. As a result, customers will need to invest in comprehensive server facilities to compress the images properly. But small shops, petrol stations or schools eager to keep a watchful eye on their surroundings do not have the opportunities or finances for enormous data processing facilities, and therefore Mobotix produces cameras with integrated software which requires far less server capacity," explains Bo Ørbjerg.

The new H.264 standard can compress data down to 12 Mbps, whilst in comparison, a Mobotix 3 megapixel camera only uses a 3 megabit bandwidth.

Mobotix surveillance cameras do not use MPEG-4, but their own MxPEG codec, which is the foundation of all Mobotix cameras. Because of the innovative technology in MxPEG, Mobotix has long been able to offer better resolution and compression than most other surveillance
cameras in the market, according to Mobotix.

"I often hear that many specifications of requirements specify that clients want a surveillance system with the H.264 standard. This is a great pity seeing that customers thus rule out a Mobotix surveillance system solely on the grounds of our codec without knowing that they are
also ruling out a surveillance system with the market's best megapixel resolution," Bo Ørbjerg concludes.