Abstract: A video recorder cluster for use in a video surveillance system includes multiple recorder nodes that can each participate in processing of user-specified operations such as playback, recording, and analysis of the video streams. The video recorder cluster determines the required resources for processing the video data of streams, determines the available resources on each of the recorder nodes, and forwards the video data of the streams to recorder nodes that either include the required resources or include a preferred set of available resources in accordance with the required resources. The video recorder cluster presents a single cluster address for client user devices to access the resources of the video recorder cluster, thereby enabling the video recorder cluster to appear as a single virtual network video recorder to clients.