Digital Ally, Inc. (Nasdaq: DGLY), which develops, manufactures and markets advanced video surveillance products for law enforcement, homeland security and commercial applications, today announced that it has been notified by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (?USPTO?) that its initial patent (No. 8,781,292) on its VuLink™ connectivity system has been approved and will issue on July 15, 2014. The Company also announced that it has begun shipping the new product to law enforcement customers.
?Digital Ally?s new U.S. Patent No. 8,781,292 brings a new level of digital recording to the law enforcement community,? stated Stanton Ross, the Company?s Chief Executive Officer. ?The new patent is directed to a controller that wirelessly synchronizes multiple recording devices, such as video cameras and microphones. When an operator starts one recording device, the controller instructs the other recording devices to also record, and synchronizes the recordings on the various devices. This provides audio/video surveillance from multiple vantage points in order to more fully capture an event, and it allows the operator to quickly and easily reassemble the various recording devices.?
The VuLink allows the Company?s Digital In-Car Video Systems and its FirstVU HD
Body Camera to seamlessly work together, providing law enforcement with a fully integrated audio/video record of activities and/or evidence collection in the field, whether inside, in close proximity to, or up to 200 feet away from the officer?s vehicle.
The VuLink is the first product on the market that enables body cameras and in-car video systems to be automatically or manually activated simultaneously. For example, when a vehicle?s emergency lights are activated, the body camera will automatically begin recording simultaneously with the vehicle?s video system, thereby removing any distraction to the driver or the chance that the officer may forget to activate a recording manually.
Alternatively, if the officer is away from the vehicle when an incident occurs, VuLink will allow him/her to remotely start recordings on both systems with the FirstVU HD Body Camera.
The recordings from both systems can later be linked together to provide a seamless record of the same incident from different perspectives utilizing the Company?s VuVault software.
?VuLink provides a truly effortless way to capture an event from the perspective of the vehicle?s video system, which can include the individual wearing the body camera, as well as from the personal perspective of the wearer, regardless of where the job takes the officer,? stated Stanton Ross, Chief Executive Officer of Digital Ally, Inc.
?We have already received considerable interest in the VuLink from the law enforcement community,? continued Ross. ?Many police and other law enforcement agencies believe that body cameras will eventually be issued to all of their officers in the field, and the ability to communicate between vehicle camera systems and body cameras is essential to the safety of the officers and the integrity of audio/video evidence when introduced in court.?
?We believe that Digital Ally?s patent on the VuLink?s ability to communicate between the Company?s FirstVU HD and its in-car video systems will strengthen our ability to compete in the rapidly growing market for body cameras.
We are also able to offer our customers a unique ?docking station? that can upload data from and recharge 12 FirstVU HD systems and separately recharge up to 12 FirstVU HD batteries (a total of 24 batteries) simultaneously, thereby reducing ?down time? and increasing the productivity of officers in the field.?
?It is our belief that the availability of VuLink will further enhance the market appeal of our new DVM-800 Digital In-Car Video System, which was introduced to our law enforcement customers at the International Chiefs of Police Conference in Philadelphia last October and began shipping to customers in December 2013,? added Ross.
?During the first half of 2014, the DVM-800 accounted for approximately 47% of our
Company?s total systems shipped, and it is rapidly becoming our flagship in-car video system offering.?
The DVM-800 is a high-end digital in-car video system with five-year warranty protection that provides top-of-the-line capabilities at significant upfront and long-term savings.
Starting at a price of less than $3,500, which is at least $1,500 less than comparable video systems, the DVM-800 is also available with a credit discount for customers that trade in their existing in-car video systems.
The Advance Exchange warranty available with the DVM-800 also allows law enforcement agencies that wish to (1) have a defective system repaired or (2) upgrade to a new model in the future to receive a replacement unit before sending their defective or old system back to Digital Ally, thereby avoiding any ?down time.?
The DVM-800 In-Car Video System?s base package features:
• four cameras,
• intelligent dual camera simultaneous recording,
• wireless download,
• 720-pixel resolution that maximizes quality with storage space requirements,
• secure redundant recording to allow a continuous loop to be saved on the internal memory while individual incidents are saved on a removable SD card,
• a 2.4Ghz wireless microphone,
• an integrated 3.5-inch color monitor that is invisible when not in use and supports an automatic back-up camera display,
• GPS with interactive back office incident mapping,
• detailed vehicle and event metadata,
• minimum 32GB of solid state memory,
• pre-event recording to capture events that occur before a recording is activated,
• automatic recording triggers,
• a ?mark? button to tag important events and locations,
• internal battery backup and LED status indicators, among other features.