The rising number of traffic accidents is giving a new light on digital versatile recorders (DVRs), which can be used to record and store traffic accident scenes.
So-called vehicle DVRs is not only unaffected by travelling speeds of cars, but also durable to extreme temperature and shock. They can also be installed with wireless LAN, allowing remote access to recorded data.
Boosted by such high-tech features, the customer base of vehicle DVRs is now expanding into buses, schools, private institutes and subways from the existing police patrol and cash cars.
In line with growing demand, competition in the market is also heating up. POS Data recently won a mobile DVR order from the subway line No. 5, and leading DVR makers such as Idis, Sungjin C&C, Comart System and 3R are also keen to tap into demand in the new markets.
Idis unveiled last year two vehicle DVRs that comply to global standards on shock absorption, and is now in talks with an academic institution to supply the vehicle DVRs for school buses.
The company already shipped vehicle DVRs to a Europe-based railway company last year, and expects the ongoing talks to lead to a first deal in the home market.
Sungjin C&C, which had been in a deal with RTD, a freight service provider based in Denver, the United States since 2001, now plans to form an outsourcing deal with a maker of low-end DVRs.
Comart System has developed a vehicle DVR that adopts MPEG4 compression technology, and is marketing the new product targeting bus companies and police stations.
"Mobile DVRs used for vehicles are serving as a black box, which records and stores images and sound at the scene of traffic accident or crime," said Ji Gi-yeong, manager at Comart System. "They are also used to find a cause of accident by offering data recorded at the time of the accident."
3R has also jump into competition with a wireless network video server that addresses the problem of shaky images.