Axis Communications Looks to Bridge Old and New Video Surveillance

Effective video surveillance installations are a multifaceted operation: multiple cameras are a necessity, and constant video streaming from each camera is required. Then there's the issue of making sense of all the recorded data.

It's no wonder why quality, and expensive, surveillance installations are typically limited to large public venues and multi-million dollar companies. But Axis (News - Alert) Communications seeks to give small to medium-sized businesses and public institutes the security installation they need, not just the one they can afford, with the AXIS M7016 Video Encoder and the AXIS P7216 Video Encoder.

The M7016 offers a cost-effective means to enter full frame rate network video, while the P7216 steps up the network video game with audio, I/O ports, and a small form-factor pluggable (SFP) slot, which can be used with fiber optics.

These two video encoders give customers using analog cameras the means to make the jump into IP video, a specialty of Axis Communications (News - Alert).

"With tens of millions of analog cameras still in operation around the world, video encoders allow these end-customers to leverage existing investments while providing a scalable solution to network video," Fredrik Nilsson, general manager, Axis Communications, Inc., said in a statement.

Both video encoders use one network port, rather than the normal requirement of four ports per 16-channel unit, power supply, SD-card slots, and offer simultaneous H.264 and Motion JPEG streams. The P7216 also offers network redundancy by having its SFP slot automatically transfer traffic to a separate Ethernet service port in the event the SFP module fails.

Both 16-channel video encoders are planned for release in the fourth quarter of 2013 at a suggested retail price of $1,299 for the AXIS M7016 ($81 per channel) and $1,599 for the AXIS P7216 ($100 per channel).

"We continue to invest R&D into video encoder technology to increase performance and lower cost so that analog CCTV users can migrate at their own pace and still benefit from the advantages of IP video," Nilsson continued in his statement. "These two new encoders in particular address the needs of small- to mid-sized applications where cost and scalability are often barriers to going fully IP, like in many retail environments."