To avoid the loss of details of infrared video data during compression, a method for lossless compression of infrared video data is proposed. The method uses a FPGA as its core controller and uses an ADV212 chip as a compression chip. It can choose the appropriate operation mode for lossless compression. By switching its configuration on line, the saved infrared video data can be decompressed and played back. This method has been used in the portable infrared cameras we developed and good results are obtained.