5 Benefits of IP Camera Streaming
From surveillance to conferencing, internet protocol (IP) cameras are a versatile live streaming solution when high production quality isn’t the main objective. These user-friendly devices eliminate the need for a camera operator, making them a great replacement for closed-circuit television (CCTV).
‘IP camera’ describes a category of digital video cameras that can send and receive data via a computer network and the Internet. As the name suggests, these cameras have their own static IP address, which allows them to deliver streams to other internet-connected devices.
The benefits of IP cameras are numerous. For one, they can send live streams directly over Ethernet cables to anywhere in the world. This enables remote capabilities and streamlined management. What’s more, they’re affordable, feature-rich, reliable, and secure — not to mention simple to set up and operate. IP cameras are one of the most commonly used devices for live video monitoring.
In this video, Wowza’s Justin Miller sits down with PTZOptics‘ William Golde to discuss the myriad benefits and ideal use cases for an IP camera workflow. We also dive deeper below.
1. Affordable Live Coverage
For many events where an on-site camera operator is cost-prohibitive, having a remote-controlled pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) IP camera with built-in H.264/AAC encoding can be a great way to provide live coverage at a venue. Remote camera operators can take advantage of the PTZ functionality of multiple IP cameras in real time and switch between them to produce a professional live stream. One of our customers in Denmark uses this approach to produce live streams for local government sessions.
2. Simplified Video Streaming
Video streaming is complicated, with multiple protocols, codecs, playback devices, and technical challenges. Using an IP camera simplifies your streaming workflow by combining the camera and encoder. This eliminates the need for a separate encoder and reduces the hardware involved in your workflow.
What’s more, Wowza’s products and services can ingest your IP cameras live video streams, transcode them, and then reliably delivering video in multiple formats at the highest quality to any connected device, anywhere. Learn more here:
3. Feature-Rich Functionality
Deploying IP camera technology with Wowza provides a wealth of features to create the experience you want. Incorporating live stream recording and instant DVR features can improve your on-demand and live playback. There is also support for closed captioning, multi-language audio and more.
4. Reliable and High-Quality Delivery
By transcoding the incoming live streams from your IP camera, Wowza’s technology delivers adaptive bitrate (ABR) delivery to any device, anywhere. ABR streaming provides the best quality for each viewer by adjusting the video stream delivery in real time according to viewers’ varying CPU and bandwidth, reducing buffering and improving your viewers’ experience.
5. Security at Every Step of the Workflow
Security on the web has never been more critical, and the need to protect streaming audio and video content is no exception. Wowza offers security features for every part of the workflow. You can encrypt incoming and outgoing streams, require password authentication, limit who can publish to your server, restrict playback to specific IP addresses and much more.