Cool!... Just tonight, a fairly detailed email I submitted about network cameras was posted on the popular Macintouch site. I emailed it out to the Macintouch guys at 5:38pm my time and like 5 hours later it was up on the site. Here's what I wrote:

The popularity of "network cameras" is definitely gaining. These are cameras that have an embedded Web server (usually Linux-based), connect directly to a network (no computer required), and stream live video to Web browsers (among other capabilities such as uploading still JPEGs to another server, motion detection, email alerts). I have an AXIS 2100 network camera at home pointed most of the time in the area our baby plays. This allows my wife and me to see live video (displayed in our Web browsers) of our baby from our offices. It also allows our parents to see their grandchild from Hawaii or Singapore too (we reside in Hong Kong).

The "1st generation" network cameras use Motion-JPEG as a compression format to stream the video (my AXIS 2100 uses this). When a user first visits the camera Web page, a Java or ActiveX applet quickly downloads and installs in the user's browser and the video then starts streaming. On subsequent visits the video just instantly shows up — applet is not re-downloaded.

The "new generation" of network cameras use MPEG-4 which supports both video and audio in a single stream (Motion-JPEG only supports video so with optional audio in a separate stream, there can be AV sync problems). Some of the new models have a Pan/Tilt/Zoom control feature and work over a wireless 802.11b connection. The problem is that NONE of these cool, new MPEG-4 network cameras work with Macs!

Even the cameras that do claim to be Mac compatible have glitches. For instance, on a Mac, the video from my AXIS 2100 tends to flicker; on a PC it's a smooth as silk. With an AXIS 2130 PTZ camera demo I tried viewing from my PowerBook G4/500MHz/768MB running OS X 10.2.6 and using Internet Explorer 5.2, the video flickered badly and parts of the page seemed to completely reload. With the Safari 1.0 (v85) browser, although the Pan/Tilt/Zoom/Iris controls and preset-position pop-down menu showed up, the video never did.

So here is another cool technology that Mac users are really missing out on. I wonder if the problem is with the Mac Web browsers, the Mac OS, the Java/ActiveX applet provided by the camera makers, or a combination of factors.

I'm hoping this situation can improve with, perhaps, Apple helping some of these camera makers to rework their Java/ActiveX applets to work with Macs. Also, the more Mac users who pressure the camera makers to make their products compatible with Macs, the better.

Here's a list I compiled of some network camera manufacturers:

1. AXIS Communications
   
2. D-Link
   
3. Panasonic
   
4. Vivotek
   
5. Level One
   
6. Cellvision

References:

"1st generation" network cameras [Tom's Hardware Guide, Sep 2002]
AXIS 2130 PTZ camera review [Tom's Hardware Guide, Mar 2003]