H.264 - Vivotek IP Surveillance Overview

3.1.3 H.264

H.264 was initially developed by ITU (International Telecommunication Union) and then published by JVT, a group
combined by ITU and ISO/IEC, in 2003. H.264 is also known as MPEG-4 part 10. H.264 has a higher compression
ratio than MPEG-4, and thus can further reduce bandwidth usage.
Technology
Similar to MPEG-4, sequential and previous key frames are required during compression and decompression.
H.264 provides a more efficient method of compression with more precise motion search and prediction; however,
it requires more powerful CPU capability.
Table 3.1 shows H.264 has a higher compression ratio than MJPEG and MPEG-4, but its CPU loading ratio is also
higher than the other two formats.
Compressed file size of origin
H.264
MPEG-4
MJPEG
Figure 3.5 Compressed file size of MJPEG, MPEG-4 and H.264
Compressed
file size
Bandwidth
comparison
ratio
Encoding
CPU loading
ratio
Application
1%
2%
0 1 2
Table 3.1 Comparison of MJPEG, MPEG-4 and H.264
MJPEG
20%
20
1
Local

storage
 Snapshot
viewing
Chap.3 Video and Audio Compression
20%
20
MPEG-4
2%
: :
2
: :
4
 Moving 
picture
viewing
 
Real-time
transmission
100%
H.264
1%
1
10
Moving
picture
viewing
Real-time
transmission
21