Bosch is one of the founding members of the ONVIF forum, which was set up to establish a global interface standard for network video products. Open to all companies and organizations, the forum's aim has been to standardize communication in order to ensure interoperability between network video products from different vendors. Finalized in July 2009, the standard will enable all IP products with an ONVIF interface, from whatever vendor, to fully communicate with each other over an IP network. For installers and system integrators the new standard will mean greatly simplified installation and greater freedom in specifying a system, and for end-users it will mean more flexibility and far greater freedom of choice.

Firmware 4.1 also provides new features that contribute to ease of installation, including Universal Plug & Play (UPnP) functionality and Bilinx support for Dinion cameras. With the latter feature the menus of analog cameras are now fully accessible and the settings can simply be changed via the web browser of the IP Video encoder through which they are connected to the IP network.

Other new features include a privacy masking function, enabling selected areas in a scene under surveillance (e.g. windows) to be grayed out to preserve privacy, and - in combination with the latest BVIP (Bosch Video over IP) Lite Suite - local export support, which allows images to be directly exported to a PC without the need of additional licenses.

Customers with installed Bosch IP Video products are able to download Firmware Release 4.1 from the Bosch website free of charge, while new customers of Bosch cameras and encoders will receive their products already equipped with the additional Firmware 4.1 features.