FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 10, 2026

WINK Streaming Releases WINK Archiver 3.5

Continuous recording that keeps going through bad networks, instant seeking on every device, and alerts only when something is actually wrong

MIAMI, FL – WINK Streaming today announced WINK Archiver 3.5, the newest version of its network video recorder for IP cameras. This release is about reliability rather than new features. Version 3.5 keeps recording through damaged or lossy camera streams, repairs common storage faults on its own, and emails operators only when a problem needs attention. It also adds instant playback and seeking in browsers and mobile apps, and a hardened security model intended for deployments that are reachable from the internet.

What WINK Archiver Is

WINK Archiver is a self-hosted video recorder for IP cameras. It connects to any camera that streams RTSP, records continuously to local disks or network storage, and gives operators one place to watch live video, scrub a timeline to find any moment in the archive, export clips, and get told when something has gone wrong. Smart detections cover people, vehicles, animals and packages, and are marked on the timeline so playback can be driven by event rather than by clock.

It runs on the customer's own hardware, on virtual machines or in the cloud, so footage stays wherever the customer needs it to be. The media handling is built on a customised version of the open-source MediaMTX media server, extended with WINK's own archive engine: cameras are managed from a database and picked up within seconds, every recording is indexed as it is written, gaps and stream events are tracked, and storage health is monitored continuously.

Recording That Survives Bad Networks

This is the change that drove the release. Cameras on poor links, meaning long cable runs, overloaded switches and wireless bridges, deliver damaged video. Previous versions could treat a single damaged frame as fatal: the recording was closed and the camera reconnected, then the same thing happened again a few seconds later. In 3.5 the recorder and the live video server resynchronise at the next keyframe and keep writing the same recording, so the timeline stays continuous instead of being chopped into fragments with gaps between them.

In WINK's own testing, a camera on a lossy link went from thousands of recording restarts a day, with hours of missing footage, to continuous recording. That figure is ours and was measured on our own hardware, not independently verified.

Instant Playback and Seeking

Recordings are stored as fifteen minute files. Version 3.5 indexes every file as it closes and serves recorded video as precise byte ranges a few seconds long, so a browser, an Android player or an iOS player can start at any point in the archive straight away rather than downloading a file from the beginning to reach the middle of it.

Alerts Only When Something Is Wrong

On a real site cameras drop and reconnect constantly, and earlier versions turned that into dozens of emails a day, which is the fastest way to teach an operator to ignore the alerts. Version 3.5 emails only when there is a genuine problem, and each problem is reported once with a daily reminder while it lasts. Everything else goes in the daily status report.

Self-Healing Storage

Archiver 3.5 watches its own storage and repairs the common faults without waiting for somebody to notice. Network shares are remounted when they hang or drop, including after a reboot. Recording folders whose permissions get changed on the storage side are fixed within a minute. Recordings left unfinished by a restart are completed with their real length, so nothing disappears from the timeline.

Retention cleanup also got safer. It now removes recordings from the index only once their files are confirmed deleted, which means a temporary storage outage can no longer wipe the archive's index while the footage itself is still sitting there.

Ready for the Internet, and for Mobile

Every live stream, recording and image now requires a login over HTTPS. Read-only viewer accounts can watch and export but cannot change settings, never see camera passwords, and only see the cameras that have been switched on for them. Thumbnails used by external integrations are served through signed links that expire.

Companion apps for Android and iOS are in app store review. A JSON API and a gateway API connect Archiver to video walls and dashboards.

Installation

A single installer sets up a complete system on Devuan or Debian Linux in minutes. It builds the media server from source, configures the database, the web server, HTTPS and a firewall, and installs every background service under the runit supervisor. For evaluation the installer can add demonstration cameras, and a feed import tool will load a library of sample camera feeds grouped by category.

Retention Without a Deletion Date

Paired with WINK Forge, which performs the scheduled transcodes, Archiver keeps the waterfall retention model it has always had. Recent footage is held at original resolution because that is what an active investigation needs, and as it ages it is transcoded down in scheduled steps rather than being deleted on a fixed date. The clip stays in place and stays retrievable throughout, which avoids the usual outcome where a hard deletion date destroys the one recording somebody needed in month seven.

Per camera retention in days is still there for sites that want a hard limit, along with automatic disk space protection, and 3.5 makes the cleanup safer: a recording leaves the index only once its file is confirmed deleted, so a temporary storage outage can no longer empty the index while the footage is still on disk.

Storage can be local, on network storage, or in cloud object storage, with policy driven migration between them. Archiver runs on physical hardware, on virtual machines or in the cloud, so the footage stays wherever the customer needs it to stay.

Feature Overview

Why This Release Looks The Way It Does

There is very little in version 3.5 to put on a slide. That is deliberate. The complaint operators brought to us was not about missing features. It was that a camera on a poor link would leave them with a timeline full of holes, and that the one alert worth acting on would arrive buried under forty that were not. Both of those problems are unglamorous and both of them are the reason somebody stops trusting a recorder. Fixing them was worth more to the people running these systems than anything new we could have added alongside.

Availability

WINK Archiver 3.5 is available now. It installs on physical hardware, on a virtual machine, or on a cloud instance, from a single command installer on Devuan or Debian Linux. Existing Archiver customers should contact their WINK representative or write to sales@wink.co to arrange the upgrade and to confirm the terms that apply to their agreement.

The Android and iOS companion apps will be available on Google Play and the App Store once approved. To arrange a demonstration, see the product page or contact sales@wink.co.

Part of a Platform

Archiver is a complete recorder on its own, and it is also one piece of the WINK platform. WINK Forge performs the waterfall transcoding and normalises awkward camera streams on the way in. WINK Traffic and LPR and WINK Analytics add plate recognition, vehicle counting and deeper analysis on the same cameras Archiver is already recording, which is where that work belongs rather than inside the recorder. WINK Media Router shares a specific set of cameras with another agency under their own credentials, and WINK Crossroad puts several sites in one browser view.

About WINK Streaming

Founded in 2006, WINK Streaming provides video transcoding, distribution, recording and sharing for state, county, city and municipal agencies, transportation departments, utilities and public safety organisations. The company's products move live and recorded video from the cameras agencies already own to authorized viewers only, across every common codec and protocol, on premises or in the cloud. Twenty years in, the company remains focused on supporting what its customers already run. Learn more at wink.co, or read about the company.

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