Axis 241QA 0230-004 User Manual

•MPEG-4 is licensed technology. The Video Server includes one license for the decoder required 

for viewing in AMC. Installing additional unlicensed copies of this decoder is prohibited. To pur-
chase more decoder licenses, contact your Axis reseller.

•All clients viewing the MPEG-4 stream must use the same image settings.

To deliver live streaming video over IP networks, various combinations of transport 

protocols and broadcast methods are employed.

• RTP (Real-Time Transport Protocol) is a protocol that allows programs to manage the 

real-time transmission of multimedia data, via unicast or multicast. 

• RTSP (Real-Time Streaming Protocol) serves as a control protocol, to negotiate which 

transport protocol to use for the stream. RTSP is thus used by a viewing client to start a 

unicast session, see below.

• UDP (User Datagram Protocol) is a communications protocol that offers limited service 

for exchanging data in a network that uses the Internet Protocol (IP). UDP is an alterna-

tive to the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). The advantage of UDP is that it is not 

required to deliver all data and may drop network packets when there is e.g. network 

congestion. This is suitable for live video, as there is no point in re-transmitting old 

information that will not be displayed anyway.

• Unicasting is communication between a single sender and a single receiver over a net-

work. This means that the video stream goes independently to each user, and each user 

gets their own stream. A benefit of unicasting is that if one stream fails, it only affects 

one user.

• Multicast is bandwidth-conserving technology that reduces bandwidth usage by simul-

taneously delivering a single stream of information to multiple network recipients. This 

technology is used primarily on delimited networks (intranets), as each user needs an 

uninterrupted data flow and should not rely on network routers.

The recommended method of accessing live video (MPEG-4 and/or Motion JPEG) and 

audio from the Video Server is to use the AXIS Media Control (AMC) in Microsoft Internet 

Explorer in Windows. This ActiveX component is automatically installed on first use, after 

which it can be configured by opening the AMC Control Panel applet from the Windows 

Control Panel. Alternatively, right-click the video image in Internet Explorer.

Deciding on the combination of protocols and methods to use depends on your viewing 

requirements, and on the properties of your network. Setting the preferred method(s) is 

done in the control applet for AMC, which is found in the Windows Control Panel. When 

this has been set, AMC will test all the selected methods in the specified order, until the 

first functioning one is found.