Development of higher resolution video was held back by the need for storage space and bandwidth. To take the 4K camera as an example, a common industry standard bitrates is 8Mbps for H.264. Hence 591GB storage space needed for 24 hours video for seven days. That’s much larger than the storage space in a PC’s hard disk. Meanwhile, the camera needs no less than 20Mbps bandwidth to support both live view stream and storage stream computing. It’s much higher than the global average wire speed, and only slightly less than South Korea which has the world’s fastest streaming speeds.
To balance the need for HD surveillance and storage and bandwidth cost, and to keep pace with the development from H.264 to H.265, Uniview says that it’s spent enormous efforts to exploit HEVC coding standard, and finally invented the patent coding technique U-Code. Together U-Code and H.265 make Ultra 265. That’s described by the manufacturer as an end to end solution which can save up to 95 per cent storage space and 75pc storage cost.
Unlike conventional video compression technologies which try to reduce storage costs by sacrificing resolution and frame rate, U-Code chooses to use “IRP” (Intelligent Region Perception) to detect motion in each frame. Hence, scenes containing interesting information can be preserved while other static areas such as lawns, white walls can be squeezed, to save storage.
To reduce bandwidth, U-Code will stretch GOP (Group Of Pictures). Meanwhile, it uses V.I (virtual I frame) to ensure that media has a key frame that contains critical data so that the network recorder can run the Frame Accurate Search and Quick Playback. Uniview call it EF tech, for “Enhanced Frame”.
By combining U-Code and H.265, the makers claim that Ultra 265 can squeeze up to 95pc bandwidth and storage space.
Under the same configuration, Ultra 265 only costs one hard disk to store the same video record which needs four hard disks under H.264, saving 75pc storage. Moreover, Ultra 265 retains image quality brought by H.265, reduces the image distortion caused by code compression to a great extent, optimizes image blur, trailing smear and rough of stroke edge, and improves the accuracy of video content analysis, according to the manufacturer. The company also claims that Ultra 265 breaks the bottleneck of HD resolution. It enables customers to make full use of Super HD surveillance products like 4K under current bandwidth and storage deployment.
