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SPECIAL PULLOUT SECTION!

SSIs Master Technician Series

MAKING SENSE
OF
VIDEO
COMPRESSION

Presented by

Brought to You by

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SSIs Master Technician Series

By the Editors of Security

Sales & Integration
secsales@bobit.com

AT A GLANCE
Compression methods reduce
file sizes of images, making stor-
age and transmission more feasi-
Your Video Com p
Now in Session
ble and affordable
Irrelevancy or redundant reduc-
tion is used to eliminate redun-
dant images within video files
JPEG, MPEG, H.26* and wavelet
are best-known compression
standards
From a storage and transmission standpoint, compression is one
Proprietary schemes can be help-
ful in achieving higher compres-
sion and, therefore, lower cost of the key elements that makes digital video recording possible.
American Dynamics Active
Content Compression (ACC) is Knowing the pros and cons of the many different technologies
a proprietary method designed
for security and productivity and techniques will make you more adept at meeting your
management, whereas other
technologies were designed for
other purposes customers surveillance needs.

W
ith so many manufacturers offering DVRs and
NVRs, the many different types of compression
utilized throughout the industry can become
very confusing. Which form of compression is best? What
are the different technologies? What is the cost vs. quality
between compression methods? What is the difference be-
tween compression standards such as JPEG and MPEG?
What about propriety compression schemes, such as ACC?
These are the key questions to ask when dealing with
digital video recording whether it is a single DVR or a
large networked system. Brought to you by Tyco Fire &
Security, this educational article will provide the answers
that will enable you to offer your customers solutions di-
rectly from the perspective of a true digital video surveil-
lance expert.
Compression Reduces File Sizes
The trick to video compression is to remove information
no one will notice is missing. If they do, it shouldnt be
something that is too important. There are a lot of tech-
niques for removing unneeded video information, which is
why there are lots of different compression standards. Lets
begin by discussing some of the basic codecs (compres-
sor-decompressor or coder-decoder) in use so you can
get an idea of some of the tradeoffs involved.
Consider the requirements needed to store or transmit
a single minute of composite video to a remote location.
Without compression, the ability to store this information
would require a minimum of 1.66GB of storage space. In
the case of video transmitted via a DSL/cable modem throt-
tled back to ~600Kbps to 700Kbps to be viewed remotely,

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m pression Lesson Is
it would take about 5.47 hours to transmit from Point A
to Point B.
There has always been a tradeoff between the quality of
video and file size. If you want the best quality in images,
then you have to deal with an enormous file size. For exam-
ple, by decreasing the file size 50 percent, you lose some
image quality but create a smaller file size that is more con-
ducive to recording or transmitting video signals.
By no means is the process behind compression easy;
there is a tremendous amount of mathematical complexity
required to establish the different compression methods. A
quick description of the basic parts will help clarify some of
the theory and explanations discussed later in this article.
Analyzing the Video Signal
If we analyze the video signal, we see it can be separated
into many parts, or subparts, classified by the importance in
reference to the images visual quality. A lossy compression
method is one where compressing data and then decom-
pressing it retrieves information that may well be different
from the original but is close enough to be useful in some
way. Thus, the tradeoff is file size vs. image quality vs. cost.
Lossless data compression involves a class of algorithms
that allows the exact original data to be reconstructed
from the compressed data. This form of compression is
used when it is important that the original and decom-
pressed data is identical, or when no assumption can be
made as to whether certain deviation is uncritical. Typical
examples are executable programs and source code.
Some image file formats, notably .png, use only lossless
compression. Others, like .tiff and .mng, may use either
lossless or lossy methods.
All photos courtesy Tyco
The lossless compression of images is important in fields
such as medical imaging and remote sensing, where data
integrity is essential. Typically, compression engines for
lossless codes, including variable-length encoding, are list-
ed as an average of 4:1 compression. In variable-length en-
coding, prior to the writing of the image, the information is
aligned according to frequency, which plays an important
role in the image compression process.
For the most part, lower frequencies, which occur more
often, are placed to the front while higher frequencies are
placed at the end. In any file, certain characters are used
more than others. In general, we can attain significant
savings if we use variable-length prefix codes that take
advantage of the relative frequencies of the symbols in
the messages to be encoded.
Huffman compression is an example of variable-length
encoding. Huffmans algorithm compresses files by as-
signing smaller codes to frequently used characters and
longer codes to characters that are less frequently used.
Using binary code (a sequence of zeros and ones that can
uniquely represent a character) representation, the number
of bits required for each character depends on the number
of characters that have to be represented. One bit can repre-
sent two characters; for example, 0 represents the first char-
acter and 1 represents the second. Two bits can represent
four characters and so on. Some proprietary compression
methods refer to this as the delta factor.
Methods Are Full or Conditional
There are several basic avenues of processing a video
image, all of which fall into the category of either full
image or conditional compression.
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within a single image or between mul-

How JPEG Images Are Processed
N1 - 1 N2 - 1
[ ] [ ]
k1 k2
B (k1, k2) = 4 A(i, j) cos (2 i + 1) cos
2 N1 2 N2
i=0 j=0
Discreet
cosine Quantizer
transform
8 X 8 pixel blocks 16 11 10 16 24 40 51 61
12 12 14 19 26 58 60 55
14 13 16 24 40 57 69 56
14 17 22 29 51 87 89 62
18 22 37 56 68 109 103 77
24 35 55 64 81 104 113 92
49 64 78 87 103 121 120 101
72 92 95 98 112 100 103 99
Quantization table
The discrete cosine transform (DCT) helps separate the image into parts (or spectral
subbands) of differing importance with respect to the images visual quality.
The full image approach usually relates to Joint Photo-
graphic Experts Group (JPEG) and wavelet compression,
in which the entire image is analyzed, compressed and
stored. In most cases, this form of analyzing an image can
only provide a limited amount of compression, meaning
larger file sizes and increased storage space requirements.
With conditional compression, only changes from
image to image, or to adjacent image, are analyzed and
compressed. This method is usually associated with Mov-
ing Picture Experts Group (MPEG), modified MPEG com-
pression methods and the H.26* series of compression.
2 Types of Reduction Explained
Most types of image files are fairly redundant they have
the same information listed over and over again. File com-
pression programs simply get rid of the redundancy. Instead
of repeatedly listing a piece of information, a file compres-
sion program defines that data once and then refers back to
it whenever it appears in the original program. The major
image reduction schemes are irrelevancy reduction and
redundant reduction.
Irrelevancy reduction omits the parts of the video sig-
nal that are not noticed or perceived by the signal receiv-
er, which in this case is the human eye. Through the re-
search of Human Visual Systems (HVS), it has been proven
that small color changes are perceived less accurately
than small changes in brightness, so why brother saving
this information?
It is also known that low-frequency changes are more
noticeable to the human eye than high-frequency
changes. Low frequencies control the coarser or more
noticeable conditions of a video image, whereas higher
frequencies are usually related to the finer details of a
video image.
Redundancy reduction is accomplished by removing
duplication from the signal source, which is found either
tiple images of a video stream.
The first of the three types of redun-
dancy reduction methods is called
spatial reduction, which reduces the
(2 j + 1) correlation between neighboring pixel
values. As an example, consider a
white tile floor. Each pixel value will
basically be the same for the entire
Entropy
encoder
Compressed floor, so why store this same informa-
image data
tion over and over when once will do?
The next redundancy reduction
method is spectral reduction, which is
the correlation between color planes or
bands within an image. As an example,
consider a blue sky. Many areas of that
sky have the same numeric value.
Therefore, the amount of stored infor-
mation to reproduce that same image
can be reduced.
The last area is known as temporal
reduction, which is the correlation be-
tween adjacent frames in a sequence. This information is
the basis for MPEG as well as the H.26* series of compres-
sion methods.
Temporal reduction looks at two types of image
arrangements. The first one is a full representation of the
viewed image. This is known as the I-frame and is en-
coded as a single image, with no reference to any past or
future images. In some circles, it is also referred as the
Key-frame. The concept behind the temporal method is if
there are no movements then why bother saving the in-
formation? Conversely, any movement will be detected
and the compression process will begin.
How Video Frames Are Handled
The compression forms detailed in the preceding sec-
tion are the foundation for todays compression standards.
There are some additional terms, however, that will help in
understanding the differences among those methods
Intraframe is compression applied to still images, such
as photographs and diagrams, and exploits the redun-
dancy within the image, known as spatial redundancy. In-
traframe compression techniques can be applied to indi-
vidual frames of a video sequence.
Subsampling is the most basic of all image compression
techniques and reduces the amount of data by throwing
some of it away. Subsampling reduces the number of bits
required to describe an image, but the quality of the sub-
sampled image is lower than that of the original.
Subsampling usually takes place in one of two ways. In
the first, the original image is copied but only a fraction of
the pixels from it are used. Alternatively, subsampling can
be implemented by calculating the average pixel value for
each group of several pixels and then substituting this av-
erage in the appropriate place in the approximated image.
The latter technique is more complex but generally pro-
duces better quality images.

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Interframe is compression applied to a sequence of
video frames rather than a single image. In general, rela-
tively little changes from one video frame to the next. In-
terframe compression exploits the similarities between
successive frames, known as temporal redundancy, to re-
duce the volume of data required to describe the sequence.
There are several interframe compression techniques of
varying degrees of complexity. Most of them attempt to more
efficiently describe the sequence by reusing parts of frames
the receiver already has in order to construct new frames.
Subsampling can also be applied to video as an inter-
frame compression technique by transmitting only some
of the frames. Subsampled digital video might, for exam-
ple, contain only every second frame. Either the viewers
brain or the decoder would be required to interpolate the
missing frames at the receiving end.
Difference coding or conditional replenishment is a very
simple interframe compression process during which each
frame of a sequence is compared with its predecessor, and
only pixels that have changed are updated. In this way, only
a fraction of the number of pixel values is transmitted.
Next Step in Process: Quantization
Following the signal analysis, the next part is the quantizer.
Quantization is simply the process of decreasing the num-
ber of bits needed to store a set of values
or transformed coefficients as they are
called in data compression language. How H.264 Images Are Processed
Since quantization is a many-to-one
mapping and reduces the precision of Video in
those values, it is known as a lossy
process (as opposed to lossless) and is
the main source of compression in most
image coding schemes.
There is a tradeoff between image
quality and degree of quantization. A
large quantization step size can pro-
duce unacceptably large image distor-
tion. Compression methods use four
types of quantization: discrete cosine
transform (DCT), vector quantization
(VQ), fractal compression and discrete
wavelet transform (DWT).
DCT is a lossy compression algo-
rithm that samples the image at regu-
lar intervals. It analyzes the compo-
In theory, H.264 is based on block transforms and motion-compensated predictive cod-
nents and discards those that do not
ing. Motion estimation is used to identify and eliminate the temporal redundancies that
affect the image as perceived by the exist between individual pictures.
human eye. JPEG, MPEG, H.261, H.263
and H.264 are a few compression standards that incorpo-
rate DCT.
VQ is also a lossy compression that looks at an array of
important, instead of individual, values. Vector quantiza-
tion generalizes what it sees, compresses redundant in-
formation and tries to retain the desired information as
close to the original as possible.
Fractal compression is a form of VQ; however, this type
of compression locates and compresses self-similar sec-
tions of an image. This compression then uses fractal algo-
rithms. Fractal is a generalization of an information-free,
object-based compression scheme rather than a quantiza-
tion matrix. It uses a set repetitive in shape but not size.
DWT compresses an image by frequency ranges. It filters
the entire image, both high and low frequencies, and repeats
this procedure several times. Wavelet compression utilizes
the entire image, which differs from many DCT methods.
Standards Include JPEG, MPEG
What are the different compression systems available
in the security marketplace? The first group can be listed
as compression standards. These are standards that have
been approved by various agencies and have been guided
by groups of individuals and committees. They include
Joint Photographic Exports Group (JPEG), Moving Pictures
Expert Group (MPEG), International Telecommunication
Union (ITU) and International Standards Organization
(ISO) just to name a few.
Now that we are familiar with the different compres-
sion theories and the ways video information is reduced,
we can apply this knowledge to the industrys various
compression standards.
JPEG This is a lossy compression method, meaning the
decompressed image isnt quite the same as the one in
Rate control
Quantizer Buffer Coded
Transform Coder image
Inverse
quantizer
Inverse
transform
Motion
compensated
predictor
Motion Motion vectors
estimator
which you started. JPEG is designed to exploit known lim-
itations of the human eye, notably the fact that small
color changes are perceived less accurately than small
changes in brightness. Thus, it is intended for compress-
ing images that will be viewed by humans.
Data compression is achieved by concentrating on the
lower spatial frequencies. According to the standard,
modest compression of 20:1 can be achieved with only a
small amount of image degrading. However, if you plan to
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machine-analyze your information, the small errors gen- The MPEG-2 standard has a resolution of 720 X 480 pix-
erated by JPEG may cause problems. els (4 CIF) and incorporates both progressive and inter-
The Joint Photographic Experts Group has approved laced scanning. Interlaced scanning is the method used
the next standard for image compression, known as in the CCTV industry to produce images on monitors.
JPEG2000, which is based on wavelet compression algo- MPEG-2s most significant improvement over MPEG-1 is
rithms. By setting the mother wave for image compres- its ability to efficiently compress interlaced video. It is also
sion and decompression ahead of time as a part of the capable of coding standard-definition television at bit rates
standard, JPEG2000 will be able to provide quality resolu- from about 3Mbps to 15Mbps and high-definition televi-
tion at a compression of 200:1. sion. Compression ratios for MPEG-2 vary, depending on
MPEG There are many different areas to this compres- the type of signal and number of B-, P- and I-frames. On av-
sion standard. Each has its very own special features, and erage, the ratio goes from 50:1 to 100:1.
improvements are consistently being incorporated that The MPEG-4 standard is used for multimedia and Web
add to the existing standard. However, the basics are sim- compression because it is designed for low bit-rate transmis-
ilar for all versions. MPEG incorporates the same com- sion. MPEG-4 utilizes object-based compression in which in-
pression methods as JPEG (DCT ). However, MPEG is dividual objects within a scene are tracked separately and
based on the group of images concept. The group of im- compressed together. This method offers a very efficient
ages is defined as the I-frame, P-Frame and B-Frame. compression ratio that is scalable from 20:1 up to 300:1.
The I-frame (intra) provides the starting or access point
and offers only a small amount of compression. P-frames H.26* series This group of compression standards is the
(predicted) are coded with reference to a previous picture, result of the telecommunications industry and has also been
which can be either an I-frame or another P-frame. B- adopted by the security industry for remote video viewing.
frames (bi-directional) are intended to be compressed The H.263 video compression algorithm is designed for low
with a low bit rate, using both the previous and future ref- bit-rate communications. The video source-coding algo-
erences. B-frames are never used as references. rithm of H.263 is a hybrid of inter-picture prediction that
uses temporal redundancy and trans-
forms the coding of the remaining signal
How ACC Images Are Processed to reduce spatial redundancy.
H.263 can achieve picture quality as
Video input Noise Interframe Run length high as H.261 with 30 percent to 50 per-
immunity delta analyzer encoder cent of the bit usage. Because of its low
resolutions and low bit rates for trans-
mitting video images, H.263 is also better
than MPEG-1/MPEG-2. The compres-
DC transform sion ratio of H.263 can reach up to 200:1.
Manufacturers have made many ad-
vances during the past year in the com-
pression standards they are offering.
Quantizer H.264 is one of those advancements. In
theory, H.264 is based on block trans-
forms and motion-compensated pre-
dictive coding. Motion estimation is
Huffman used to identify and eliminate the tem-
Coded image
coder poral redundancies that exist between
individual pictures.
ACC uses the intraframe technique to compress the first image, or what is referred to as H.264 leverages todays processing
the reference frame or I frame, which represents the complete image. It also incorpo- power to provide improved coding
rates interframe and noise immunity to compress the subsequent 31 images to create techniques, including multiple refer-
what is known as a prediction or updated frame. ence frames and variable block sizes
for motion compensation, intraframe
The relationship between the three frame types is de- prediction, an integer transform, an in-the-loop deblock-
scribed in the MPEG standard; however, it does not re- ing filter and improved entropy coding.
strict the limit of B-frames between the two references or Wavelet This compression standard does not use DCT;
the number of images between two I-frames. instead it incorporates the use of frequency filtration. The
The MPEG-1 standard has a resolution of 352 X 240 pix- advantage of wavelet compression is that, in contrast to
els common interchangeable (or intermediate) format JPEG and MPEG, its algorithm does not divide the image
(CIF) at 30 images a second and incorporates progressive into 8 X 8 blocks as found with DCT. This characteristic
scanning. It is designed for up to 1.5Mbps with compres- allows wavelet to obtain good compression ratios while
sion ratios listed as 27:1. maintaining optimal image quality.

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The filtering schemes rely on the image parts that are
not noticed by the human eye. The more the filtering oc-
curs, the smaller the overall file size of the images and the
lower the image quality will be when decompressed.
With the addition of the previously mentioned JPEG2000,
the approach taken by the Joint Photographic Experts Group
is changing from DCT to wavelet compression.
Not All Methods Are Standards
There are several compression methods that have been
incorporated in the security industry that have not offi-
Cost-Effectiveness Comparison of ACC vs. MPEG-4
Storage in Terabytes
(100 cameras @ 2CIF, 15 ips for 30 days)
MPEG-4
ACC
ACC saves ACC saves
$62,493 $59,451
20.32TB ACC saves 21.71TB
$44,978
14.33TB
2.47TB 1.48TB 4.73TB
Indoor Indoor Outdoor
low light
Proprietary compression schemes in the marketplace today include American Dynamics
active content compression (ACC). This technique focuses on the importance of delivering
quality digital video that is both economically and technologically feasible. These costs
are based on the industry average of $3,500/TB.
cially been adopted as standards. These typically are
modified versions of those that have been established as
standard but with added tweaks and capabilities.
Motion-JPEG (M-JPEG) is a video codec that compress-
es each video field separately into a JPEG image. The re-
sulting quality of intraframe video compression is inde-
pendent from the motion in the image. This differs from
MPEG video where quality often decreases when the
video image contains lots of movement. M-JPEG is often
used as a storage format for large video files that need to
be archived with good quality. It is a lossy compression,
but at high quality, the image degradation is minimal.
How Proprietary Schemes Fit In
There are also many proprietary compression schemes
available, such as Active Content Compression (ACC) from
American Dynamics, a division of Tyco Fire & Security.
While other video compression technologies originated
to serve other purposes, ACC was developed specifically
for security and productivity management.
This compression technique focuses on the impor-
tance of delivering quality digital video that is both eco-
nomically and technologically feasible. This is critical
when you consider the staggering amount of data gener-
ated by one camera alone during a 24-hour period.
A single video image comprising 640 X 480 pixels (4
CIF) represents 0.88MB. Now add motion in the equiva-
lent of a series of images recorded at the rate of 30 fps and
you have the following:
640(h) pixels X 480(w) pixels X 3 bytes/pixel =
0.88MB/image
0.88 MB/image X 30 images/second = 26.37MB/second
26.37MB/seconds X 3,600 seconds/ hour =
94,921.88MB/hour
94,921.88MB/hour X 24 hours/day = 2,278,125MB/day
To store this much video data without any compression,
you would need more than eight 300GB
hard drives. Downloading it would take
several days using a T-3 line (45Mbps).
ACC uses three forms of compres-
sion: intraframe, interframe and noise
ACC saves immunity.
$69,032
Before continuing, lets talk a bit
32.98TB
about the critical role of noise in video
compression. Noise is present in all
systems and is usually related to the
quality of the video input signal. All
compression systems compress any
changes to a video signal, including
13.26TB noise. The result is increased file sizes,
Outdoor night which in turn cause increases in stor-
age space and bandwidth require-
ments, especially when networking is
involved.
Since noise is a major player when it
comes to compression and file sizes, it
is only natural that it should be a consideration in com-
pression methods.
ACC uses the intraframe technique to compress the
first image, or what is referred to as the reference frame or
I frame, which represents the complete image. It also in-
corporates interframe and noise immunity to compress
the subsequent 31 images to create what is known as a
prediction or updated frame. This includes only active
content or changers within the image.
This proprietary encoding technology, which is used in
ADs Intellex digital recording systems, makes manipula-
tion and/or alteration of the original recorded video data
stream virtually impossible and ensures the authenticity
of the recorded video. Since ACC does not provide any
method to edit the original recorded video stream, it pro-
tects the court admissibility of your video evidence.
Base Compression on Application
With all of the different types of reduction methods
available for video images and the many different com-
pressions, it is no wonder many people get confused with
digital video storage and transmitting equipment.
With each form of information reduction method or
compression standard, there is one single item to keep in
mind: The quality of the reproduced image whether
from a storage device such as a DVR or a remote location
will depend on the application of that system.
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