MPEG-4 DVRs

MPEG-4 DVRs is technology that is inferior to H.264. Although MPEG-4 DVRs are a big step up from MJPEG DVRs they are vastly inferior to H.264 DVRs. MPEG-4 compression is controlled by software rather than hardware. Most of that process is all done by signal digitizing.

Although MPEG-4 compression stems from the same technology as H.264 DVRS, we do not carry MPEG-4 DVRs as they are inferior, outdated technology that often appears unclear and "grainy" when viewing live or steaming the video.

Also depending upon which country you reside, and which country the MPEG-4 DVR was manufactured, a MPEG-4 DVR may not be completely legal, as there are conflicting patent holders in separate countries for MPEG-4 technology.

Be advised: some online stores still try to sell these inferior products. H.264 DVRs and MPEG-4 DVRs are very close in price, so we suggest that you avoid the problems associated with MPEG-4 and go with H.264.

History on MPEG-4 Digital Video Recorders

Despite not selling MPEG-4 DVRs, they truly we a giant step forward in the industry in their day. MPEG-4 was created in 1998. They are in the same class as H.264, except that they do not fully use hardware to encode the video. Although this means that video encoding will be slower, choppier, and in lower resolution. 

There 23 parts to MPEG-4 DVR technology. MPEG-4 DVRs' biggest contibution, was allowing the synchronization and multiplexing of video and audio. MPEG-4 encoding corrected errors in the way video signal is transported in a consistent and recorded in a non-stop process. Secondly, MPEG-4 uses advance video codecs. H.264 compression is a 100% hardware and MPEG-4 is like 50% hardware and 50% codecs (software signal processing).

MPEG-4 DVRs were replaced by H.264 DVRs that use hardware to do all the recording and video encoding. H.264 DVR allow significantly higher resolution when watching the video live or when streaming the video surveilance over the web. H.264 video also is also fully web compliant and is used by Youtube, Vimeo, and iTunes; this means that for those with the mainstream modern browsers (Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 4, Chrome, or Safari), users will not need to download any additional software to watch the video. Watching MPEG-4 requires one of many software applications such as Quicktime or Real Player to function.

The Legality of MPEG-4 Digital Video Recorders

MPEG-4 had several conflicting patent holders in different countries that placed additional limitations on it's use. A MPEG-4 DVR could be legal in one country and face patent infringement lawsuits in another. This inability of manufacturers to make one product that was available in multiple markets and the possibility of a multi-country lawsuit also led to the technology being replaced by H.264.

However, it is appearing that H.264 may follow in MPEG-4's footsteps and also face legal use issues. Ogg Theora DVRs (an open source video encoding format) may one day come to replace H.264 DVRs.