PSIM goes mobile with DICE's Matrix Universal Video

PHILADELPHIA—DICE Corp. this week formally launched Matrix Universal Video, a cloud-based PSIM system that allows users to receive alarms and their linked videos simultaneously and access the information with an iPad or Android device.

Cliff Dice, president and CEO of DICE Corp., said the promise of mobility generated a lot of interest at ASIS 2012, where Matrix Universal Video was officially introduced. Beta testing began two years ago and the system has been deployed in the field for about a year.

“It can be pushed out to iPads and guards, so a PSIM product can now be in the hands of someone walking around—it doesn't have to be in the control center,” Dice told Security Systems News. “When everybody heard that they were ecstatic, because that means monitoring can be done anywhere. I don't think there are any other PSIMs out there that are browser-based in the way we've done it.”

Dice said the system can be referred to as a PSIM or as a video management product depending on the target consumer. It can be hosted at a company facility and then used in the field, or it can be hosted by DICE.

“For the alarm industry, we refer to it as a video management tool that goes along with your alarm monitoring,” he said. “But for the ASIS market, [which] understands what a PSIM is, we call it a PSIM.”

Matrix Universal Video also allows users to connect to multiple sites; view automated tours and pause the tours if operators detect issues on-site; capture screen shots of camera windows and place time stamps on them; and record and play back video clips of connected sites via Honeywell's Rapid Eye.

Dice cited an example of system's capabilities during the Matrix product presentation at ASIS.

“We even deployed it in a police car,” he said. “Think of it as 'I've got a camera in the car, it's recording, I've got license-plate identification, it comes on my screen, I've got the FBI feed that this guy's wanted.' … No one has really thought of PSIMs that way before.”

Dice said he developed Matrix Universal Video with Kathleen Sowder, vice president of technology at CamGuard Systems of Ontario, Calif., a provider of temporary, portable video surveillance. The system has been installed at CamGuard and 13 other sites.

“All of the ideas came from her and me doing what she needed done at CamGuard,” Dice said. “They've been winning all sorts of contracts because they can deploy it in the field. It's really been a big hit.”