Thanks. As a retired electrical and computer engineer I really liked the "Resource Guide on IP Technology for all Noobs" pinned to the top of this forum.
To help me truly understand the material I have purchased a raspberry pi camera module for bench-top evaluation. Studying the problem from an engineering perspective helps me relate. Learning the space more completely will also help me accept product recommendations from the guys with experience and doing hands on-evaluation.
It appears the manufacturers are secretive when it comes to describing their "secret sauce" which is mostly implemented by code for
inter-frames (e.g., H.264,MPEG-4) and intra-frame only (e.g., MJPEG, JPEG2000) processing and the integration to the underlying sensor.
The following link is a remarkably open discussion by the makers of the raspberry pi camera module. It shows just how secretive the manufacturers are when it comes to their Image Signal Processing (ISP) technology. The entire industry is paranoid. You don't get any view whatsoever from within the walled garden without making a sizeable financial commitment. Even then the manufacturers may insist on providing their own engineers to perform integration into your product. Wow. No wonder detailed and accurate specs are hard to come by. Even the guys making a product do not have the relevant details.
Camera Interface Specs:
Camera Interface Specs - Raspberry Pi Forums