IP camera
type of digital video camera commonly employed for surveillance, and which, unlike analog closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras, can send and receive data via a computer network and the Internet
An Internet Protocol camera, or IP camera, is a type of digital video camera that receives control data and sends image data via an IP network. They are commonly used for surveillance, but, unlike analog closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, they require no local recording device, only a local area network. Most IP cameras are webcams, but the term IP camera or netcam usually applies only to those that can be directly accessed over a network connection.
Some IP cameras require support of a central network video recorder (NVR) to handle the recording, video and alarm management. Others are able to operate in a decentralized manner with no NVR needed, as the camera is able to record directly to any local or remote storage media. The first IP camera was invented by Axis Communications in 1996.
History
The first centralized IP camera, the AXIS Neteye 200, was released in 1996 by Axis Communications. Although the product was advertised to be accessible from anywhere with an internet connection, the camera was not capable of streaming real-time video, and was limited to returning a single image for each request in the Common Intermediate Format (CIF). This limitation can be attributed to the lack of powerful integrated circuits capable of handling image processing at the time of release. As a result, the camera was aimed primarily at the tourism industry and was not intended to replace traditional analog CCTV systems.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “IP camera” is type of digital video camera commonly employed for surveillance, and which, unlike analog closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras, can send and receive data via a computer network and the Internet. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through camera, type and digital, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “type of digital video camera commonly employed for surveillance, and which, unlike analog closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras, can send and receive data via a computer network and the Internet” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1427360. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1996.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “IP camera” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.