Watcher NVR
Appliance for process recording on a shop floor: local archive, box quote, without designing a central VMS.
One shop floor or a holding: what to design
Watcher NVR is a ready appliance for recording the process on a single shop floor. A multi-site holding needs Watcher VMS in the center plus NVR at each plant.
One shop floor
Watcher NVR is an appliance for one shop floor: local process recording and on-site archive. Predictable box quote — without designing a central VMS. If there is no holding center yet, this layer is enough.
Calculate Watcher NVR for the shop floorHolding / several plants
Watcher VMS is the holding center: unified access, API and security policies. Watcher NVR is in plants and shop floors: local process recording and archive. Design both layers — not a single NVR for the whole holding.
Holding architecture: VMS + NVR| Criterion | Watcher NVR (shop floor) | Watcher VMS (holding center) |
|---|---|---|
| Task | Process recording, local archive | Unified access, API, policies |
| Design scope | One shop floor / area | Holding, multi-site, B2G |
| Delivery | Appliance, quote from $50,630 | Software, cluster, private cloud |
Get a typical Watcher NVR specification
Leave your business email, job title and company — we will send a typical shop-floor Watcher NVR specification (TZ).
What happens without a reliable archive in production
At industrial sites, video is needed not for live viewing but for incident review: injuries, equipment failure, theft, contractor disputes. If the recording is missing when you need it, you have no evidence.
- Incident investigation is delayed or impossible — reputation damage and potential regulatory sanctions.
- Legal and insurance cases are lost due to lack of video evidence.
- No objective view of staff and contractor actions — operational risk increases.
- Archive loss due to disk or DIY server failure means losing weeks or months of data.
The cost of one such incident far exceeds the price difference between a DIY setup and a ready-made industrial solution.
Why DIY surveillance servers are a risk
Any integrator can assemble a server from parts and install software. For a 20–50 camera office that is often enough. For an industrial site with hundreds of cameras it is not.
No single point of responsibility
When something fails, it is unclear whether hardware, drivers, network or software is at fault. The hardware vendor points to software, the software vendor to hardware. Downtime and investigation drag on.
Unpredictable support costs
Updates, bugs, version incompatibilities — all land on your engineers or integrator. Total cost of ownership grows year on year and is not fixed in advance.
Difficulty sizing for load
Sizing storage, network and headroom for cameras and bitrate requires experience. Design errors lead to insufficient archive or overpaying for excess disks.
A ready-made industrial solution means one delivery, one warranty, a fixed price and a defined archive depth (e.g. 30 days for a given number of cameras).
What is Watcher NVR
Software-hardware solution for IP camera recording
Watcher NVR is not "software in a box" but a ready-to-deploy appliance: a video surveillance server with preinstalled software, configured storage and a web admin panel. You get an IP camera archive storage server sized and tested for the stated load.
- Capture streams from IP cameras via standard protocols (RTSP etc.), record to archive for a set retention (e.g. 30 days).
- Web admin panel: camera management, archive playback, search by time and camera, clip export.
- Supplied as a ready appliance: no need to choose disks, build RAID or configure the OS — everything is done and verified.
- 1 year warranty and updates included. Extension of warranty and updates — 15% of list price per year.
How many cameras for process recording?
First size cameras by process type in the shop floor, then pick a Watcher NVR appliance for that camera count.
Large-scale production
Assembly, CNC machines, welding
1 camera per 1–2 workstations (or 1 machine)
Wide-angle overview cameras plus dome cameras to capture operator actions.
Linear process
Conveyor, packing, packaging
1 camera every 3–5 meters of the line
High resolution (from 4–5 MP) and a narrow field of view to control fine details on the belt.
Quality control
QC exit, small-assembly desks
2 cameras per 1 workbench
Narrow cameras strictly from above (assembly process) and from the side (operator hands).
- Split the shop floor into zones by process type.
- Apply the density rule above and sum camera count for the shop floor.
- Add bitrate and archive depth — pick a standard 300 / 400 / 600 appliance or request a project quote.
Standard shop-floor appliances
Watcher NVR appliance for process recording on a shop floor: 2 Mbps per channel, 30-day archive
For more than 600 cameras in a shop floor we provide a custom project quote.
300 cameras in the shop floor
30 days
2 Mbps
$50,630
400 cameras in the shop floor
30 days
2 Mbps
$62,270
600 cameras in the shop floor
30 days
2 Mbps
$94,398
Cost of a single incident
One serious production incident (injury, major failure, theft, legal dispute) without video evidence can cost as much as the entire surveillance system budget.
- Investigation without archive — extra cost in staff time, possible fines and reputational damage.
- Lost lawsuit or insurance denial due to missing footage — direct financial loss.
- A reliable 30-day archive and fast search by camera and time shorten investigation and give predictable outcomes.
Investing in a ready-made industrial NVR with fixed price and warranty is not "extra cost" but risk reduction and predictable budget for years.
Reliability and warranty
The solution is designed for 24/7 operation in an industrial environment.
- 1 year hardware warranty and right to software updates included in the purchase price.
- Warranty and update extension — 15% of system price per year: you know support costs in advance.
- Ready appliance delivery: configuration is verified, load and archive depth (e.g. 30 days) are documented.
- Single point of responsibility: in case of failure you contact us, not separate hardware and software vendors.
Use cases in production
Industrial video surveillance with long-term reliable archive is needed where incident review and process control matter.
Refineries, petrochemicals, power
Monitoring of process areas, perimeter, access points. Archive for incident investigation and regulatory requirements.
Metallurgy and heavy engineering
Video recording of production areas, warehouses, loading. Evidence base for injuries and equipment failures.
Logistics and warehouses
Movement tracking, loading/unloading control, dispute and theft investigation. 30-day archive is a common requirement.
Corporate security
Single IP camera archive server with web access for operators and management. Search by time and camera without IT involvement.
Engineering approach to sizing
Surveillance server configuration is determined by four parameters. From these we select a standard configuration or produce a project quote.
Number of cameras
Total number of IP cameras whose streams must be recorded to one archive storage server (or cluster).
Bitrate per camera
Average stream bitrate (Mbps). It drives storage capacity for a given archive depth. Typical value 2 Mbps.
Archive depth
How many days to retain recording (e.g. 30 days). Affects required disk capacity.
Redundancy
Requirements for fault tolerance (e.g. RAID, standby server). Affects final configuration and price.
Submit the form — we will size the configuration and send a commercial proposal.
Calculate Watcher NVR for the shop floor
Specify camera count, archive depth and contacts. We will size Watcher NVR for the shop floor and send a proposal with no obligation.
Watcher NVR shop-floor sizing request
Leave contacts and shop-floor parameters — we will size the appliance and send a commercial proposal.