Hi Guys,

I recently released an article about increasing competition and alternatives to Axis' IP cameras: http://ipvideomarket.info/report/axis_i ... coming_end

There's been a bunch of interesting comments to the article. I thought you might be interested. I am also curious to your views on this topic.

Excerpt of the article below.

Cheers,

John


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IP video is becoming mainstream but Axis' IP cameras may lose their dominance in the process. Six critical issues may undermine Axis position and in the process provide consumers with more options and lower prices.

The six issues are:

* Lower cost, good enough, IP cameras from competitors are maturing.
* Multi-megapixel cameras from competitors are maturing.
* Axis' new features overshoot the needs of mainstream buyers.
* Now, traditional CCTV vendors are committed to moving into IP.
* Industry interoperability specifications are coming
* The recession will force buyers to prioritze low cost.

http://ipvideomarket.info/report/axis_i ... coming_end

Good to hear that healthy competition should soon drive prices down. Axis have had it all there own way for too long. They must have made a fortune out of those little plastic jobs with cheapo camera-phone sensors.

An interesting article, John. Axis and Arecont were the big names. ACTi is another. But just wait until Bosch, Matsushita, Sanyo, Sony and other BIG names decide to pull out all stops and really push IP.

Good reading on that site, thanks for the link.

Apologies for going off topic but I see no one has really answered your
concerns over decoding H.264.

This is really not a big issue.

H.264 is certainly processor intensive to encode but decoding is
comparatively easy, as it is for most standards/codecs.

However, one of the major advantages of H.264 is scalability.
The scalability extensions (SVC extensions) built in to the standard allow
the video stream to be scaled without re-encoding.
This allows a high resolution stream to play on a low resolution device, the
decoder simply rips the appropriate resolution from the high res stream.

I know it works as I use an H.264 DVR that records every channel at
25 fps, 704 X 576.
Playing back a dozen streams at once on a Dual core PC, without scaling,
uses 10% CPU.
This is close to the equivalent of playing a 5 megapixel stream at 25fps on
a monitor with a 5 megapixel resolution.

With scaling, so all the player windows fit on my monitor, barely registers
on the CPU meter.

Hope this answers your concerns.

I'm really of two minds about your article. First is that you are right, price is going to kill Axis. Why would an installer sell it if they can't make any margin on it. But at the same time, I'm not sure anyone company is going to be able to overcome the hurdle of support. It's hard to find a company who's cameras are as widely supported. So while Axis may get dethroned, I'm not sure we'll see another king in it's place.

Hi Thomas, I agree with you that we are unlikely to see a new 'king' in its place. If the analog camera market is an indicator of a mature state, it's likely that you will have dozens of players all with modest market share. By various measure, Pelco is the analog market leader but with less than 20% of the market share. A major IP market could simply see new entrants to IP gain market share and result in a more balanced market.

I suspect that it is going to be a hindrance to market growth. I've run into way too many cases in which people have bought cameras and been frustrated that no one supports it. D-Link customers in particular suffer from this problem.

the lack of universal standard is a problem for ip cameras. when it's solved, it will see really fast growth

for those of you interested in reading more about the developments in creating/promoting standards, you may find this article helpful: http://ipvideomarket.info/report/ip_cam ... rds_battle

I see Axis and a few others pushing for it, but when I'm at trade shows the camera reps just seem to treat it with a wink and a nudge. And while those of us on the NVR side would love it, I just don't see the camera manufacturers adopting it. It becomes hard for them to claim exclusive features within a strict set of APIs. Or you end up with an MS style embrace and extend...which leaves us with the status quo.

Hi Thomas,

I am becoming convinced that the camera manufacturers with smaller market share are going to drive the adoption of standards. They are the ones who have the incentive to do it. Even if we do not get 'a' standard, I see a critical mass building around a common specification that all the ip camera providers with lower market share will support. Then companies like yourself can add support for that specification to provide support for many IP cameras.

It may be a future trend, but we're not really seeing it now at our level. The only time we run into common standards is when we run into common OEM's. So while I can see it as a possible future, I don't see any evidence of it now. I mean getting cameras out of them, or even up on the web to test against is a PITA. Most of the time they want you to buy the camera. Even just asking them to put it up on the web is like pulling teeth.

And the manufacturer support needs to go well beyond that. There are reasons beyond market leadership that Axis is supported by every NVR. They are the only manufacturer that gives us tools like their virtual server. It's trivial to simulate 100, 200, 2000 cameras on a network. It gives a much, much better idea what happens with software at the extreme ends of the spectrum and allows us to create something much closer to field conditions.

The small manufacturers have a long way to go in terms of basic support for their equipment before they can get to the advanced stuff like an actual open standard.

Hi Thomas, thanks for the education on the particulars of Axis' testing tools. That was very helpful. Also, I agree with you that there is no evidence of common standards today. Right now, it is only in committees and negotiations with executives at these companies. It will be interesting to see how long this takes to get to the implementation and testing level.

I agree 100%

Axis pricing is just mind blowing