Milestone Releases 'ONVIF Edge Storage'
Lack of VMS support for IP cameras with on-board storage has been a key barrier in restricting adoption.
Now, Milestone has released 'ONVIF Edge Storage [link no longer available]'.
However, it is not really ONVIF. In this note, we examine the technical details and the potential impact this release has.
How ONVIF Supports Edge Storage
The ONVIF that most use and are familiar with is video streaming only, not recording. This includes 'Archived' ONVIF and Profile S.
Additionally, ONVIF has a relatively new offering, called Profile G, that does supports recording. At the time of this post, only 4 Panasonic cameras (and no VMSes) officially support Profile G.
How Milestone Supports 'ONVIF Edge Storage'
Milestone acknowledged that they are not ONVIF Profile G conformant and that they do not have current plans to become so.
However, Milestone says they are implementing a "subset of the profile G command set" to facilitate 3rd party camera integration. This is how they are 'using ONVIF' as they express in the title of their press release [link no longer available].
As such, it is a questionable use of ONVIF branding, especially in light of the recent issues with manufacturers faking and ONVIF cracking down.
Milestone's Edge Storage Support Now
Since 2012, Milestone has supported edge storage integration on their highest end lines for redundancy. They have directly integrated edge storage for Axis and Sony cameras.
As part of the new 'ONVIF' release in the 7.5 Device Pack, Milestone will add "one single Vivotek device", noting that "We are waiting for Vivotek to launch new firmware before we can support this for their full product portfolio."
Future Milestone ONVIF Edge Storage Support
Milestone confirmed that camera manufacturers should contact them directly about adding in ONVIF edge storage support. It is unlikely that an ONVIF Profile G camera will simply just work with Milestone, without additional integration work.
Upsides of this Move
Traditionally, integrating edge storage from cameras is hard, given the complexity of commands needed to retrieve video, fast forward, rewind, pull up motion metadata, etc. This was made more challenging by the proprietary APIs of each camera manufacturer and the relative low adoption of edge storage, making it harder to justify the development work.
Because of this, the number of camera manufacturers a VMS supported for edge storage tends to be quite low. Milestone previously only had 2; Exacq lists 4; Genetec, probably has the most, and even for them, it is about a dozen, far less than the hundred plus manufacturers supported for video streaming.
Even if it is not truly ONVIF, using part of ONVIF Profile G could help simplify and streamline edge storage integration, ultimately helping to expand the breadth of options available.
Compared To Genetec