These pages feature stories and articles submitted to us from Polecam owner/operators around the world and also Polecam Press Releases and all show examples of Polecam being used in a variety of different ways and locations.
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Nikkos Mistriotis of XYZ Productions has been out in the Sahara Desert of Tunisia filming with his Polecam and sent us some great photos as well as having this to share " The production was taking place at Tunis at the south side of the country (part of the Sahara) around the area of Ksar Ghilane well known for the Rallies every year. We had to do a promotional video for the Freelander II by Land Rover. Our ma?n format was the XDCAM HD .We had a great number of toys : like the XDCAM HD F350 with wide angle & tele HD lens, the small but handy XDCAM HD EX1, onboard high res dust proof camera and of course the superior for the situation POLECAM HD with THE ICONIX camera and XDCAM HD VTR that gave as a high production value that rarely we see in a location shoot. We are very proud from the result and the client is more then happy. The set up is so unlimited and it is a standard for our HD productions since XYZ-Productions is dedicated in factual programming in television and in corporate A/V solutions. "

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Heralding a revolution in high-quality solid-state HD video acquisition, the new Flash Xstream Data Recorder (XDR) took NAB2008 by storm. Flash XDR received prestigious awards from Broadcast Engineering and Videography and was acclaimed by many conventioneers as heralding a new age in compact, affordable, high-efficiency programme production. Exhibited as a major new element of the Polecam exhibit in the NAB Central Hall, Flash XDR is an entirely electronic recorder requiring no tape or disc drive mechanism. Capturing straight to CompactFlash, the 178 x 127 x 44 unit combines low power consumption with very light weight (500 g) and very high transportability.

"This is exactly the technology we need to advance our own product range into HD," comments Steffan Hewitt, inventor of the Polecam system. "The combination of decreasing cost-per-gigabyte and increasing storage capacity has made solid-state media the ideal format for HD video acquisition. Flash XDR is comparable in size with the average broadcast camera battery and can be used with the latest generation of miniature HD camera heads or fed from the video output of an HD camcorder. The recorder captures 50 Mbit/s MPEG 4:2:2 1920 x 1080 pixel HD video direct to MXF file format complete with embedded or external audio and timecode. Operation is completely silent which is perfect for wildlife productions where the noise from a motor or fan might disturb the subject or intrude onto the soundtrack. Flash XDR is far more tolerant of low or high frequency vibration than any tape or disk mechanism and should also prove very resilient to bumps and jolts as well as to extremes of temperature and humidity."

Like Polecam itself, Flash XDR is very easy to transport, to set up and to re-stow. Files can be transferred directly to PC for editing without time being lost copying from tape. Flash XDR users also have the option of transmitting files to base rather than having to organise delivery of tapes or disks. The recorder is housed in a rugged aluminium chassis with a rubberised protective jacket and can easily be mounted to Polecam in tripod-based or harness-based configuration.

Flash XDR stores up to 164 minutes of HD on four hot-swappable 16 Gbyte CompactFlash cards. 32 Gbyte cards are now available at less than $180 with 48 and 64 Gbyte cards expected soon. The recorder also supports MPEG2 4:2:2 at 100 and 160 Mbit/s as well has HDV over IEEE 1394.

Polecam was established in 1998 by extreme sports cameraman/director Steffan Hewitt. While directing a series of windsurfing kit commercials in Hawaii, he needed to obtain close, wide-angle front shots of a windsurfer in action, shot from a tracking boat or jet ski. He improvised a rig comprising a miniature camera on a carbon fibre windsurfing mast. Returning to Britain, he developed a lightweight go-anywhere rig with a remote joystick-controlling a high precision pan and tilt head. Polecam now sells successfully around the world from its base near Bedford.

Austria was the setting for one of Ant and Dec's challenges on ITV's Saturday Night Takeaway and the polecam was one of the cameras which covered the race as well as some of the race build up.
The course was 1km long and the polecam was perfect for getting establishing shots of the course from high angles as well as pov type shots to introduce certain bends and other parts of the bobsleigh run.

Despite the steep slopes, the polecam was relocated with ease along different parts of the course and was either pushed along on it's wheels or broken down and reassembled in minutes.

Polecam 3D head

The new prototype Polecam 3D head with two Iconix HD cameras on test with Chris Randak of Axis Films (www.axisfilms.co.uk) in Bolton, England on December 7th 2007 for a Reebok commercial with boxer Amir Khan.

Flash XDR - Available April 2008

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This sale took Polecam's total to over two hundred rigs delivered worldwide