ONVIF (the Open Network Video Interface Forum) is a global and open industry forum with the goal of facilitating the development and use of a global

open standard An open standard is a standard that is openly accessible and usable by anyone. It is also a prerequisite to use open license, non-discrimination and extensibility. Typically, anybody can participate in the development. There is no single definition ...

for the interface of physical IP-based security products. ONVIF creates a standard for how IP products within

video surveillance Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly tr ...

and other physical security areas can communicate with each other. ONVIF is an organization started in 2008 by

Axis Communications Axis Communications AB is a Swedish manufacturer of network cameras, access control, and network audio devices for the physical security and video surveillance industries. History Axis Communications was founded in 1984 by Martin Gren, Mika ...

, Bosch Security Systems and

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

. It was officially incorporated as a non-profit,

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Delaware corporation on November 25, 2008. ONVIF membership is open to manufacturers, software developers, consultants, system integrators, end users and other interest groups that wish to participate in the activities of ONVIF. The ONVIF specification aims to achieve interoperability between network video products regardless of manufacturer. ONVIF concerns itself with standardization of communication between IP-based physical security products to achieve open interoperability between equipment from different manufacturers.

Members

In December 2009, the ONVIF member base had grown to 103 members. This comprised 12 full members, 13 contributing members and 78 user members. In December 2010, the forum had more than 240 members and more than 440 conformant products on the market. By January 2015, this had grown to more than 3,700 ONVIF conformant products and 500 members. By August 2016, this had grown to more than 6,900 conformant products on the market but shrunk to 461 members. In February 2020, ONVIF reached more than 14,000 conformant products. , there are 496 members and more than 23000 conformant products.

Name

ONVIF originally was an acronym for ''Open Network Video Interface Forum''. The longer name was dropped as the scope of the standard expanded beyond video applications.

Specification

The ''ONVIF Core Specification'' aims to standardize the network interface (on the

network layer In the seven-layer OSI model of computer networking, the network layer is layer 3. The network layer is responsible for packet forwarding including routing through intermediate routers. Functions The network layer provides the means of transfe ...

) of network video products. It defines a network video communication framework based on relevant

IETF The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a standards organization for the Internet and is responsible for the technical standards that make up the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP). It has no formal membership roster or requirements and a ...

and Web Services standards including security and IP configuration requirements. The following areas are covered by the Core Specification version 1.0: * IP configuration * Device discovery * Device management * Media configuration * Real time viewing * Event handling * PTZ camera control * Video analytics * Security ONVIF utilizes IT industry technologies including

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, RTP, and

Motion JPEG Motion JPEG (M-JPEG or MJPEG) is a video compression format in which each video frame or interlaced field of a digital video sequence is compressed separately as a JPEG image. Originally developed for multimedia PC applications, Motion JPE ...

MPEG-4 MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related tec ...

H.264 Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and distr ...

video codec A video codec is software or hardware that compresses and decompresses digital video. In the context of video compression, ''codec'' is a portmanteau of ''encoder'' and ''decoder'', while a device that only compresses is typically called an '' ...

s and

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. Later releases of the ONVIF specification (version 2.0) also covers storage and additional aspects of analytics.

Milestones

* November 25, 2008: Incorporated as Open Network Video Interface Forum * November 2008: Release of Core Specification version 1.0 * December 2008: Release of Test Specification version 1.0 * December 2008: First member meeting in

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* March 2009: Set up of several working groups to work on the further development of the forum * May 2009: Release of test tool and conformance process * July 2009: Release of the world's first ONVIF conformant products by Merit Lilin * September 2009: Show plug fest in

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, USA * October 2009: ONVIF reaches 100 members * April 2010: ONVIF extends scope to cover access control in addition to video * July 2010: ONVIF reaches 200 members * November 2010: Release of Core specification version 2.0 * December 2010: Release of Test Specification version 1.02.2 * January 2011: 600 ONVIF-conformant products on the market * December 2011: Test Specification version 11.12 released * January 2012: Profile S specification released to clarify interoperability * June 2012: Test Specification version 12.06 released * December 2012: Test Specification version 12.12 released * June 2013: Test Specification version 13.06 released * August 2013: Release of Core specification version 2.4 * December 2013: Test Specification version 13.12 released * December 2013: Profile C Specification released * March 2014: Final release of Profile C * June 2014: Test Specification version 14.06 released * June 2014: Profile G Specification released * December 2014: Profile Q Specification released * December 2014: Release of Core specification version 2.5 *June 2015: Release o
Core specification version 2.6
*December 2015: Release o

*June 2016: Release o

*December 2016: Release o

*June 2017: Release o
Core specification version 17.06
*December 2017: Release o
Core specification version 17.12
*June 2018: Release o
Core specification version 18.06
*December 2018: Release o
Core specification version 18.12
*June 2019: Release o
Core specification version 19.06
*December 2019: Release o
Core specification version 19.12
*June 2020: Release o
Core specification version 20.06
*December 2020: Release o
Core specification version 20.12
*June 2021: Release o
Core specification version 21.06
*July 2021
Ends support for Profile Q

References

External links