News/H.264 Plus vs. H.264

H.264+ Smart Codec vs H.264

Observation

• Dahua's new H.264+ Smart Codec saves bandwidth compared to H.264.
• Special equipment is required to take advantage of H.264+ Smart Codec.

Hypothesis

H.264+ Smart Codec will be more efficient than H.264. I expect a reduction of 20-50% in bandwidth over H.264. There also must be proprietary equipment for the Smart Codec to work properly. There has to be a trade-off for the performance increase.

Experiment

Setup

• Storage: Video files were stored on the Micro-SD card of the camera, and these are averages of several 8 minute recordings. This experiment was conducted by recording under these video conditions:

• Network: The use of Solar Winds Real-Time bandwidth monitor was used to track network traffic of the camera over SNMPv2 protocol to monitor data passed through the devices Ethernet port. Two recording and viewing devices, a NVR6A08-64-4KS2 and a PC were viewing the main stream from the device and the total bitrate was averaged.
• Still Scene: a scene where there were no moving objects or lighting changes.
• Moving Scene: a spinning wheel used for LPR was run that occupied approximately 1/15.5 of the screen.

Storage

	H.264 Plus:	H.264:	Saved Storage:
Still Scene:	16158 Kbps	40822 Kbps	60.42%
Moving Scene:	37351 Kbps	47338 Kbps	21.10%

Network Traffic

	H.264 Plus:	H.264:	Saved Bandwidth:
Still Scene:	180 Kbps	300 Kbps	40.00%
Moving Scene:	790 Kbps	950 Kbps	16.84%

Theory

Theory: Utilizing a cognitive encoding method, Smart Codec uses several technologies in order to reduce the amount of space and bit rate a video feed consume. By taking reference frames and applying them to refreshed frames the Smart Codec eliminates the need to transmit data for an unchanged image, or parts of the image where there is no movement. This supports the results of the experiment showing lower bit rates and also lower storage rates.

Conclusion

Dahua's new H.264+ Smart Codec does save bandwidth compared to H.264, and the only special equipment required is a camera that can take advantage of the H.264+ Smart Codec. Results have shown that most h.264 compliant recorders can take advantage of this technology. The results have shown H.264+ does save storage and stream rates more or less around 20-50%. The trade off has not shown any signs of failure in the video stream as they playback just as well as h.264.