A distributed video management system for video surveillance that allows for monitoring a camera allocation parameter and dynamic reallocation of video cameras to available camera nodes in response to detecting a change in the allocation parameter. As such, the system may provide for load balancing of the processing of video data from the video cameras with reference to the allocation parameter. The change in allocation parameter may be due to a number of potential contexts, including a change in availability of camera nodes, a change in the nature of the video data captured, a change in computational load, or other change that results in a change in allocation parameter. The allocation parameter may be continually monitored to allocate video cameras to camera nodes in the system for enhanced system performance in view of potentially changing conditions.