Heralding a major development in high-quality solid-state HD video acquisition, the new Flash Xstream Data Recorder (XDR) was a hit at NAB. Flash XDR received several awards 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, 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," said 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."

www.polecam.com