¶ WebDisk CVR — help
WebDisk CVR keeps a copy of your CCTV footage away from the site it was filmed at — a second copy that sits somewhere other than your recorder. This page explains briefly how it works and points you to the step-by-step guides.
¶ What CVR is
Your recorder — or we ourselves, depending on the connection method you choose — sends footage to cloud storage. The recordings are indexed, and you browse them in the panel at cvr.webdisk.io: pick a day, click on the timeline, play, download or send someone a link.
The reasoning behind it is simple. A recorder usually sits exactly where the risk is — in the back room of a shop, in a warehouse, in the basement of a residential building. Anyone who steals it takes the evidence with it; a fire or a flood destroys the very disk holding the footage you would most want to keep. A copy held off-site is unaffected by all of that.
💡 Storage is bought separately. CVR does not sell capacity — your footage lands in storage that you set up on your own account in WebDisk Files. That way the material belongs to you and stays with you even if you cancel CVR. Without storage, CVR has nowhere to write.
¶ What CVR does not do
So there are no surprises, here is what CVR will not give you:
- It does not replace your recorder. The recorder keeps on recording and keeps the material locally. CVR is a second copy, not your primary place of storage.
- It is not a live view. You will not see what a camera is looking at "right now". You will see the recordings that have already reached us — they appear in the archive shortly after your recorder finishes sending them.
- CVR does not control your cameras. We do not set motion detection, schedules or recording quality. All of that you do at your end, on the recorder.
- CVR does not analyse your footage. We do not recognise faces, figures or number plates, we do not profile anyone, and we do not use your recordings for any purpose of our own — including training artificial-intelligence models. We do not watch the material either, so we do not know what is on it.
- We do not convert files. We store a recording exactly as your recorder produced it. If the format cannot be played in a browser, you can download the file — but we will not convert it for you.
¶ Step-by-step guides
- 🚀 Getting started — from purchase to your first recording in the archive: storage, site, recorder.
- 📡 UniFi Protect over a tunnel — how to connect a UniFi gateway so that CVR pulls the footage from Protect itself.
- 🔌 A recorder over SFTP or FTP — how to set up uploads on a Dahua, Hikvision or similar recorder, where the device sends the files to us.
- 🎬 Browsing the archive — the timeline, playback, downloading a clip or a whole range, and sharing by link.
- 🗄️ Retention — how far back the archive goes — why the capacity you buy decides how long the archive is, and when we delete the oldest recordings.
- ❓ Frequently asked questions — short answers to what people ask most often.
¶ In brief — what CVR can do
| Topic | How it works in practice |
|---|---|
| Where the footage comes from | Three routes to choose from: UniFi Protect over an encrypted tunnel (we pull it), a recorder pushing files over SFTP or FTP (the device sends it), or material already sitting in your storage, for example dropped there by a NAS (we only index it). |
| Where the footage is kept | In storage on your own WebDisk Files account. CVR writes only inside its own folder and does not touch the rest of your files. |
| When a recording shows up in the panel | We scan the archive every 10 minutes, so a fresh recording waits a short while before it appears on the timeline. |
| Playback in the browser | MP4/H.264 material (UniFi Protect among others) plays straight in the panel. HEVC depends on your browser. Formats such as .dav, .mkv, .avi or .ts will not play in a browser — those you download as a file. |
| Before playback starts | The archive is "cold": the file is first copied to fast storage. The panel tells you at that point that the material is being retrieved. |
| Downloading | Always available — a single clip, or a selected time range packed into a ZIP. You get the original file from the recorder. |
| Sharing with people outside | A public link, valid for 3 days, with no sign-in needed at the other end, up to 20 active links at a time. You can revoke a link at any moment. |
| How far back the archive goes | As far as the capacity you have bought allows. As the storage fills up we warn you by email, and then delete the oldest recordings to make room for new ones. |
| How many sites and recorders | As many sites as you need, and each one can write to different storage. As many recorders as your subscription covers — one recorder means one device sending footage. |
| The trail left when footage is opened | We log the fact and time of playback, of a download from the panel and of a download through a public link. The record is tied to the account, so it answers "which recording and when", not "by whom". |
| What is not there | Live view, camera control, face and number-plate recognition, format conversion. |
¶ What it costs
PLN 45 net per month for each connected recorder. VAT at 23% is added on top. You can change the number of recorders later on.
Capacity is not included in that price. You buy storage separately in WebDisk Files, in whatever size suits you, and you pay for it there. If you are not sure how much space you need, have a look at retention — there is a simple way to estimate it.
⚠️ Buying CVR on its own is not enough for anything to be archived. Until storage is connected the panel works, but your recordings have nowhere to go. Setting up storage in WebDisk Files takes a few minutes, and the CVR panel will walk you to it after purchase.
¶ Still not working?
Write to support@webdisk.io. Tell us the make and model of your recorder — that one sentence usually decides the answer. You can also report the problem straight from the panel, with the Report a problem button.
¶ Documents
Three documents worth keeping to hand, especially if you are recording an area that staff or customers walk through. All three are currently available in Polish only:
- WebDisk CVR terms of service (in Polish) — the terms on which we provide the service: what is our responsibility, what is yours, and how retention and link sharing work.
- Data processing agreement (DPA) (in Polish) — the document the GDPR requires when you entrust someone with processing footage of people; it sets out what we may and may not do with your material.
- Duties of the CCTV controller (in Polish) — a practical guide to what you have to do: signs at the entrance, the privacy notice, the retention period, and requests from the people who have been filmed.
⚠️ You are the controller of the CCTV data, not WebDisk. We only store the material on your instructions. Signposting the site, the legal basis for recording and handling requests from people caught on camera all stay on your side — the guide above explains how to deal with that.