Freecorder

Freecorder is minimalist NVR (Network Video Recorder). It was designed to record IP camera footage 24/7 in a rolling manner. It is simple to set up, runs on almost every platform (Docker or bare metal) and uses very little resources.

The following features make this project unique:

• Ultra low resource usage: this project was designed to run with minimal CPU and memory footprint. No GPU/NPU is required.
• Flexible deployment options: you can run this project bare metal, e.g. on a Rasberry Pi, or deploy it via Docker, e.g. on your NAS.
• Total simplicity: the user interface is clean, modern, minimalistic and very easy to use.

Features

• 24/7 continuous video recording from an RTSP stream (IP camera).
• Audio and video support.
• Web interface for browsing all recorded clips.
• Direct playback of clips via the web interface.
• Direct downloading of clips via the web interface.

What this project does NOT offer

In order to achieve minimal hardware resource usage, several features implemented by other NVR systems are not available in this project:

• Live video view
• Motion detection
• Object detection

If you require these features, take a look at other projects like Frigate, Shinobi or ZoneMinder.

Configuration

Create a config.yml based on the template. The only thing you have to change is the stream URL for your IP camera.

Deployment

Via Docker

Freecorder is easy to set up with Docker Compose. Create a data folder (for configuration and logging) and a recordings folder (e.g. on a mounted high endurance Micro SD card). Place your config.yml in the data folder.

services:
  freecorder:
    container_name: freecorder
    image: borisbrock/freecorder:latest
    restart: always
    ports:
      - "8020:5000"
    volumes:
      - /volume1/docker/freecorder/data:/data
      - /volume1/docker/freecorder/recordings:/recordings

(see the Docker Compose template)

Used Assets and Libraries

The following assets and libraries are used by this project:

• PicoCSS
• ffmpeg