I have been waiting for one of these for years. A network PTZ camera that does true standards based streaming. Most of the others from Linksys, DLink and so on seem like they fit the bill but their flavor of “MPEG-4” is only codec deep (if even that) and requires playback to be handled with their proprietary ActiveX or Java players.
Not so with the Axis 214 which not only serves true MPEG-4 content but it is playable with QuickTime and any other player that can handle a standard RTSP MPEG-4 stream. This also means that the streams can be reflected by QuickTime/Darwin Streaming Server to allow for a much larger audience than the camera itself can handle.
Unfortunately, getting it to work with the QuickTime Streaming Server but in the end it was well worth it.
In the interest of saving the rest of the world some time I am posting an email message from Kyle Robertson from Apple’s Streaming Server User’s Listserv that was immensely helpful.
Continue reading Axis 214 PTZ Camera, a dream come true..