# Extreme bandwidth-efficiency with negative zones

[Carter Maslan](https://medium.com/@CarterMaslan?source=post_page---byline--2a0b93ec56d9---------------------------------------)

2 min read  ·  Feb 24, 2017

Camio [learns automatically](https://blog.camio.com/xfinity-1tb-data-cap-adds-600-reasons-for-interest-based-video-compression-42a53c378466#.4tfmy4qaq) to differentiate between important and unimportant events. However, even unimportant events are recorded in HD when something significant — like a person, car, or truck — passes through the scene. When you know in advance that activity within a particular region of the scene is never interesting enough to record in HD, you can label that region as a _negative zone_. Just prefix the zone name with a minus sign (‘-’) as in this “-street” example below.

Press enter or click to view image in full size

Prefix zone names with the minus sign (‘-’) so that HD video isn’t recorded when activity is _exclusively_ within that zone.

The negative zone instructs [Camio Box](/content/box/index.html) to ignore events when activity is solely within the negative zone. Camio still records continuous low resolution timelapse video for all those ignored events, and it switches back to full HD recording whenever any portion of an event extends beyond the boundary of the negative zone.

## Example Video

For example, notice in the video below that the neighbor’s car and garage door opening are recorded _only_ as bandwidth-efficient, low resolution timelapse video _until_ the dog walker approaches the lawn — at which point, the recording switches back to normal speed HD video.

[Extreme bandwidth efficiency with negative zones](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0pfEtoZa2A) [Camio](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTveLbzHTYnn__dmU5EW7Iw)

Notice the switch from low resolution timelapse to full HD video when the dog walker is outside the “-street” zone.

Negative zones are particularly helpful in low-bandwidth commercial environments — for example a loading dock facing a busy street intersection — because they enable you to record the important events in HD without using bandwidth for all the passing trucks that never approach the loading dock.

Since this negative zones feature relies on intelligent analysis of video streams on the local network, it is available only for cameras, DVRs, and NVRs that are connected via [Camio Box](/content/box/index.html). [Learn more](http://help.camio.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001004443-Can-I-force-Camio-to-ignore-motion-in-specific-zones-).

Enjoy the bandwidth savings!