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Does A Camera Have A Separate ONVIF API? Does It Contain All The Features A 3rd Party VMS Can Leverage?

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RJ Spurr
•Sep 21, 2017
IPVMU Certified

Having now read "Understanding Video Surveillance API's" I am under the impression a camera will have multiple API's to communicate various functions the camera is capable of performing - when the camera and the VMS are from the same vendor you can leverage all the camera features. What I am not clear on is when you are trying to use a Vendor X camera on a Vendor Y VMS and you need to leverage the ONVIF settings - does the camera have a separate ONVIF API? I am now believing the answer will be yes.  I would like an answer to that.

Additionally I would like to understand does that ONVIF API then contain all the features a 3rd party VMS can leverage? Or possibly only a subset of of the features available via ONVIF can be leverage depending on the 3rd party VMS?

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Brian Karas
•Sep 21, 2017
IPVM

Yes, you can view ONVIF as a somewhat standardized API across multiple products.

ONVIF has multiple profiles, and a given camera may not support all of them, even if it has features applicable in the un-supported profiles. 

In other cases, the ONVIF API may not support every feature of the camera, and you may still need custom drivers to access the camera's legacy API to make use of things like analytics, or specific edge-storage functionality.

 

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RJ Spurr
•Sep 21, 2017
IPVMU Certified
In reply to Brian Karas

Thanks Brian

JH
John Honovich
•Sep 24, 2017
IPVM

RJ, to add, think of ONVIF more as lowest common denominator for supporting functions. 

To make ONVIF broadly applicable, it has to restrain its requirements to features that most every camera supports. Indeed, actually ONVIF has both mandatory and conditional features in their specifications, excerpt below demonstrating some of that:

A timely example of ONVIF's limitation vs 'direct' APIs is that ONVIF Profile S does not support H.265. H.265 with ONVIF requires either adopting the 'Media2' service or waiting for the upcoming, scheduled for 2018, Profile T.

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