Watcher

Watcher is a software application whose purpose is to help you automatically detect motion in front of web cameras and record the events your computer. It can be used as a work/home surveillance system that is able to capture streams from up to four webcams at the same time.

The utility embeds all configuration settings in a single panel. There’s no support for a help manual but the setup parameters are easy to work with, so you can decode the settings on your own.

You may preview the video streams of all four webcams directly into the main panel. What’s more, you are allowed to select the target device for each camera and turn on or off the selected webcam.

Watcher gives you the possibility to select the saving directory where you want to store the recordings, specify the maximum disk space to use, compress videos so they do not eat up too much space on your computer, and reset the event count daily.

The application reveals details about the total number of detected movement events for each camera. It shows the number of new events and allows you to reset the information.

Last but not least, it integrates a simple player that comes packed with limited playback capabilities for helping you watch the recordings. You may play, pause or restart the current selection. On the downside, there's no support for email and sound notifications upon motion detection.

All things considered, Watcher comes packed with only basic features for helping you record video streams via you webcam and detect movement, and can be handled by beginners and professionals alike. On the downside, it hasn’t been updated for a while, so you can make use of its capabilities especially on older operating systems, such as Windows XP and 7.