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• Acronym: NetCam
• ESPRIT Project #28387

Participants

• Vitec SA [F], Co-ordinating Partner
• Axis Communications AB [S], Partner
• Visual Tools SA [E], Associate Partner

Objective

The overall objective of NetCam was to develop video-camera related products that enabled more efficient and more convenient video recording, so that a greater number of home and industrial users could take advantage of the many applications to which video cameras can be put – thus achieving a number of innovations in goods, services and processes.

Expected results

The NetCam work was to result in a 3rd generation of network/modem/USB connected cameras and camera servers. These would be sold by Vitec and Axis as both components and plug & play products for attaching all sorts of cameras to PC's or to computer networks, with a high level of compression – making it possible to record for long periods on a conventional hard disk.

The products were to be low cost enough to be sold to home users as well as industry, where possible applications include: home video editing systems; remote monitoring by home users of vacation homes or boats; remote monitoring by industrial users of production lines, warehouses or hazardous areas; various security, surveillance, military and law-enforcement applications where high-speed and high compression is required for efficient data collection over extended periods.

Visual Tools was to install a pilot demonstrator in a representative security installation (chosen from the company's existing customer base). The project developments would allow them to meet their high-end customer requirements with respect to digital video recording and video transmission capacity.

Approach

Vitec was to develop a low cost MPEG-2 encoder for standalone devices such as cameras and video recorders.

Vitec was to also develop and implement a compression algorithm optimised for video-security applications. The purpose was to compress more than the generic MPEG algorithm and therefore either use less bandwidth on the network or transmit more frames per second with low bit-rate networks. Vitec's third objective was to develop a module for camera control and signal pre-processing.

Axis was to use the above components to develop a network enabled camera which was able to deliver broadcasted video over a network, as well as a small, free-standing MPEG Compression Box (MCB) that input an analogue video signal from a video camera (in PAL or NTSC format), digitised it, compressed it using state-of-the-art MPEG-2 compression with motion estimation, and output the data either to a USB connector (for use with a PC) or to a serial port (for connection to a modem, for example) or via Ethernet. To enable these products, Axis was to also develop the required network interface chip.

Visual Tools' primary objective was to evaluate the products developed in the project in real video security installations and to contribute towards tuning the programming interface of the products and the video compression algorithm for security images, by providing input requirements in the early phases of the project. They would also integrate the units developed in NetCam into their existing digital video security system – "VideoTrans" – and set up a demonstrator.