How To Stream Mpeg-4; Axis Media Control; Other Methods Of Accessing The Video Stream - Axis 215 PTZ User Manual

How to stream MPEG-4

Deciding the combination of protocols and methods to use depends on your viewing requirements, and on the
properties of your network. The available options in AMC are:
Unicast RTP
RTP over RTSP
RTP over RTSP over
HTTP
Multicast RTP
AMC negotiates with the camera to determine the transport protocol to use in the order listed above. This order
can be changed and the options disabled, to suit specific requirements.

AXIS Media Control

For accessing live video (MPEG-4 and/or Motion JPEG) and audio from AXIS 215 PTZ/AXIS 215 PTZ-E, the
AXIS Media Control (AMC) in Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows is recommended. This ActiveX
component is automatically installed on first use, after which it can be configured by opening the AMC Control
Panel applet from the Windows Control Panel. Alternatively, right-click the video image. See AXIS Media
Control User's Manual, available from the Network Video link in www.axis.com/techsup
Note:
AXIS 215 PTZ-E does not support audio and does not have I/O ports.

Other methods of accessing the video stream

Video/images from the AXIS 215 PTZ/AXIS 215 PTZ-E can also be accessed in the following ways:
• If supported by the client, the AXIS 215 PTZ/AXIS 215 PTZ-E can use Motion JPEG server push to dis-
play video. This option maintains an open HTTP connection to the browser and sends data as and
when required, for as long as required.
• As single JPEG images in a browser. Enter e.g. the path: http://<IP
address>/axis-cgi/jpg/image.cgi?resolution=CIF
• Windows Media Player. This requires AMC and the MPEG-4 decoder to be installed. The paths that can
be used are listed below, in the order of preference.
• Unicast via RTP: axrtpu://<IP address>/mpeg4/media.amp
• Unicast via RTSP: axrtsp://<IP address>/mpeg4/media.amp
• Unicast via RTSP, tunneled via HTTP: axrtsphttp://<IP address>/mpeg4/media.amp
• Multicast: axrtpm://<IP address>/mpeg4/media.amp
AXIS 215 PTZ/AXIS 215 PTZ-E - Video and Audio Streams
This unicast method (RTP over UDP) should
be your first consideration for live unicast
video, especially when it is important to
always have an up-to-date video stream,
even if some images are dropped.
This unicast method (RTP tunneled over
RTSP) is useful as it is relatively simple to
configure firewalls to allow RTSP traffic.
This unicast method can be used to traverse
firewalls. Firewalls are commonly configured
to allow the HTTP protocol, thus allowing
RTP to be tunneled.
This method (RTP over UDP) should be used for live multicast video. The video stream is always
up-to-date, even if some images are dropped.
Multicasting provides the most efficient usage of bandwidth when there are large numbers of cli-
ents viewing simultaneously. A multicast broadcast cannot however, pass a network router unless
the router is configured to allow this. It is not possible to multicast over the Internet, for example.
Note also that all multicast viewers count as one unicast viewer in the maximum total of 10
simultaneous connections.
Unicasting is used for video streaming, so that there is
no video traffic on the network until a client connects
and requests the stream.
Note that there are a maximum of 20 simultaneous
unicast connections.
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