Update Feb. 29, 2024: Updated the more information link to point to the feature documentation on Microsoft Learn.
Update June 19, 2020: If you are a hardware or software vendor looking for more information, please visit https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/stream/network-cameras.
Rise in demand for integrated security and monitoring solutions in various industry verticals has led to a rapid growth in video surveillance market globally. Network cameras, Internet Protocol-based cameras that transmit data over a local area network (LAN), are at the core of these solutions. They are used for security and surveillance in wide ranging environments including schools, hospitals, stadiums, airports, and retail spaces. Network cameras are also used for safety and analytics purposes, such as monitoring traffic and road conditions on highways and in city intersections.
We’re excited to bring new capabilities to the Windows platform that make it easier for developers to build security, safety and machine learning-based video analytics solutions on Windows. With Windows10 Insider Build 18995 or greater, we are introducing support for discovery, pairing, configuration and streaming for major ONVIF Profile S compliant camera vendors in the market. ONVIF is a leading industry forum that provides standardized interfaces for effective interoperability of IP-based physical security products, with over 12,000 conformant products[1].
Once paired to a Windows PC, network camera streams are routed through the existing Windows camera APIs. Windows provides high-performance streaming video from network cameras into existing camera applications, on diverse architectures including x86, AMD64, ARM, and ARM64. With built-in network camera support, developers now have a consistent platform to help build security and monitoring solutions. They can focus more on their business logic and worry less about camera-specific drivers or middleware.
Windows provides support for pairing ONVIF cameras via WinRT APIs and through the Add a device wizard in Windows 10. Additionally, camera applications targeting the Windows 10 Insider Build 18995 SDK or greater can stream from a given RTSP Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) through the same Windows camera APIs. This is useful for solutions that use non-ONVIF compliant cameras, or to build applications that allow users to simply enter the RTSP URI as the video source rather than pairing the camera to their device. To learn more about connecting your network camera to a Windows device, refer to the blog post.
Windows also provides AI services and capabilities for developers to create high performance end-to-end security solutions. For common surveillance scenarios like people detection, or face sentiment analysis, Windows Vision Skills offers several pre-built computer vision modules that can be integrated into applications without any AI knowledge. For AI applications with existing machine learning models, developers are able to leverage WinML APIs to evaluate models directly on the device.
We are excited to continue bringing more updated camera experiences to you in the coming months and look forward to hearing your feedback in the comment section below.