Cool. But two years later are we any closer to a standard? It still seems to me that when you decide on a brand, it's best to stick to that brand for full integration- most especially if you use a dedicated nvr box. It's still a matter of not being a guarantee that a third party product will work for any particular system. What that means to the end user is that you may indeed get a picture to show, but will it motion record? Will it record at all?

It's been THE number one issue for me taking as long as I have to leave my perfectly fine working analog system behind and do a full IP re-install. I love the plug and play of analog and mine has been doing well for over three years. I love that if one of my cameras goes down, for 50 bucks or so I can pop another camera in line. This is mostly true with IP as well, but the cost per camera is much higher and you are mostly locked into the brand you chose in the beginning- mostly for compatibility, regardless of ONVIF. But I've been piecing my IP system together with the help of SCK even before I might want to switch out my analog system because of one overriding factor- higher resolutions simply matter too much to ignore. Even for a home install, in times of crisis you need higher resolutions to be captured when it really matters most. Video capture almost always comes down to one single frame of absolute proof of ID, be it a face or a license plate- IF you're lucky to get it at all. One, single, frame. That frame better have the most resolution you can afford. I wouldn't go any lower than 2 mega pixel cameras personally, and 3 mega pixel is really what I'll have, mostly.

But for a high def IP system, you need to make your choice well informed right from the start, because you'll be sticking to that choice for the long haul. ONVIF doesn't fully open up compatibility...yet. Here's to hoping it will more so in the future, for us end users.