On-board Camera Integration With ‘Polar’ Thomson Reuters

The Ultimate On-board Camera Test

The POV.HD on-board camera system is known as the Rolls Royce of POV cameras – video quality, durability, and innovation are hallmarks of the V.I.O. brand. Designed for action sports, industrial, and military applications, V.I.O. cameras offer many unique features including in-field editing and other patented technology. Thomson Reuters selected the POV.HD as the main onboard video system for this expedition due to the rugged build quality and exceptional image quality.

When mounting the POV.HD on-board camera systems to “Polar”, the Thomson Reuters team had to use some rather unconventional mounting methods to ensure the systems would stay in place during the journey.

Polar Fitted With 5 V.I.O POV.HD On-board Cameras

In total, 5 POV.HD systems were used to capture footage, 4 interior and 1 exterior. Due to the harsh filming environment, all the recorders needed to be positioned inside the vehicle.  The rugged IP68 image heads could be placed anywhere on the exterior of Polar; 2 image heads were fitted to the roof rack and the crevasse bar. The remaining 3 systems were fitted inside Polar to capture the driver and co-driver POV, windshield POV and rear seat work-station POV.

It was a challenge to integrate all on-board cameras around the vehicle and then run all cables back to one central recorder bank; where the units could be powered and monitored.

Kieran Bradley, the team’s engineer modified an aluminum housing to secure all recorders behind the driver’s seat. This position allowed the team member sitting in the rear, the ability to change SD cards regularly but also visually check the status of the recorders while on the move.

Internal Mounted On-Board VIO POV HD Camera Head

Another key concern was vibration at mount level, given the harsh terrain in Antarctica, the team didn’t want to take any chances when it came to mounting the image heads with consumer mount solutions. A TIG welder was used to fix all heads onto custom made Aluminum mounts which were then welded directly onto the roll cage of the modified Toyota Tacoma. The results were impressive, zero vibration in the toughest driving conditions on the planet.

External microphones were used with the POV.HD mic port and positioned above each team member’s seat to capture excellent audio quality. A wireless remote control located on the dash was used to sync all units and start/stop recording at the press of a button.

Using Polar’s Satellite system, the team was able to upload low res files from the POV.HD on-board cameras to transmit via satellite and feed the Expedition blog every 4 hours while advancing towards the South Pole.

Over the duration of the expedition, the team amassed a total of 1TB of footage from the POV.HDs, the footage is used predominantly in the Discovery HD series “The World’s toughest drive”.

For more information on the POV.HD visit www.vio-pov.com