The German company MOBOTIX AG is known as the leading pioneer in network camera technology and its decentralised concept has made high-resolution video systems cost efficient.

The higher the resolution, the more accurate the detail in the image. With analog technology, a recorded image generally has no more than 0.1 megapixels (CIF). One single MOBOTIX camera with 3.1 megapixels records around 30 times more detail. As a result, larger image areas with up to 360° allround views are possible, thus reducing the number of cameras, and therefore the costs. For example, four lanes of a gas station can be recorded with one MOBOTIX camera instead of four conventional cameras.

Usually, cameras only supply the images while the processing and recording is done later on a central PC using expensive video management software. This traditional centralised structure has many limitations, since it requires high network bandwidth and the PC processing power is not enough for several cameras. An HDTV MPEG4 film already puts considerable strain on a PC, so how can it be expected to process dozens of high-resolution live cameras? Traditional centralised systems are therefore less suitable and unprofitable when compared with high-resolution systems due to the high number of PCs needed.