Two Way Audio ONVIF Profile T Specification Clarification

[distinctjuggle]

Hello!

I am looking for a camera that supports Profile T's two way audio. In my search, I am finding a lot of cameras that support ONVIF Profile T, but it remains unclear to me if the two way audio support is proprietary or ONVIF compliant.

I found the following ONVIF documentation: https://www.onvif.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/ONVIF_Profile_T_Specification_v1-0.pdf

But I do not see a clarification in regards to how two way audio is handled for Profile T support.

---

So, my question is the following: If a product is listed here (https://www.onvif.org/conformant-products/) as supporting Profile T, and that same product also supports two way audio, is that product REQUIRED by ONVIF to support ONVIF compliant two way audio standards?

In other words, if I buy X IP camera which has Profile T support as well as two way (bidirectional) audio, should it be guaranteed that this implementation of two way audio will function with any given ONVIF Profile T compliant NVR solution?

[michael-msi]

The short answer is no, vendors are not required to implemented everything in ONVIF.

The way you should read the spec regarding conditional items: "If a vendor chooses to support this feature, it must be implemented ______". That is what Section 8 is referring to in that document.

There are vendors that support bidirectional audio through their own APIs and choose not to expose that via ONVIF. Your best bet is to ask the vendor directly if they support certain conditional calls.

[distinctjuggle]

Thank you for the response. I just want to clarify a few things:

I understand the differences between Mandatory, Conditional, and Optional (Mandatory being required in all Profile T compliant devices, Conditional being required to be compliant with ONVIF if the device chooses to implement this feature at all however the device isn't required to have this feature), but I didn't see a mention of where bidirectional audio falls in this categorization. The only mention that I saw of, "bidirectional audio" or any other relevant phrases was on page 12, and not under section 8 at all.

"There are vendors that support bidirectional audio through their own APIs and choose not to expose that via ONVIF."

Is this in regards to Profile T specifically? In other words, bidirectional audio would be an, "Optional" requirement for Profile T as opposed to a, "Conditional" one? This would be quite disappointing if so.

[michael-msi]

The section you are looking for is 8.12 relating to Audio Backchannel.

The last comment is in regards to anything in ONVIF, but has limitations. For example, in Profile T there are a set of mandatory calls (section 7) that must be supported. After that, there are a set of features (section 8) that vendors can choose to support and expose via ONVIF (conditional). If they do support them via Profile T, they must implement them a certain way.

Meaning, if a vendor chooses to support audio backchannel and declare support via profile T, it must be implemented as profile T describes. (but audio back channel support is not required to get profile T)

[distinctjuggle]

Aaah, okay, thank you for pointing that section to me! I have not heard of audio backchannel before so I was not sure if this was it or not, especially considering that it was called, "bidirectional audio" earlier in the document.

So my understanding that if I find a device listed as compliant with Profile T from here (https://www.onvif.org/conformant-products/), and that device also supports two way audio, then the device must be compliant with 8.12 was correct. This is great news, thank you so much for the help and clarification!

Thank you so much for the assistance.