What is H.264?
H.264 is the leading video compression standard used today in video surveillance and beyond.
H.264, MPEG-4 Part 10, or AVC (Advanced Video Coding) is a licensed video compression standard designed to achieve a high compression ratio of a video stream while maintaining high quality.
Created by ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) together with ISO / IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) under the Joint Video Team (JVT) program.
ITU-T H.264 and ISO / IEC MPEG-4 Part 10 (the formal name is ISO / IEC 14496-10) are technically completely identical. The final draft of the first version of the standard was completed in May 2003.
It is used in HDTV digital television and in many other areas of digital video.
A little more about H.264 and why is it popular?
H.264 is a modern compression standard adopted in 2003. Thirteen years is a short time for an industry standard. For comparison, the first version of USB was adopted in 1995 and the second, which everyone uses now, in 2000.
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The H.264 standard is reliable, compatible with almost any device, and provides good compression. HD quality video will be displayed at a bit rate of no more than 7-8 Mbps, while the previous standard (HD, MPG-2) required 12-20 Mbps, roughly double.
There is a more modern H.265 standard, but so far not everyone is ready to use it (developing codecs based on it is a bit more expensive for the software and hardware manufacturer, and the best is the enemy of the good), there is an outdated MPEG-2 (whose use requires more space in media, needs thick channels for traffic). Therefore, in our time it is so important for the universality of software and technology to maintain this compression standard.
H.265 is gradually being introduced to Hikvision cameras and recorders, with support for backward compatibility. This is how USB 3.0 (blue) is now being introduced, appearing more and more frequently on new motherboards and laptops.
