January 2001: Announcing for the first time ever, the long awaited, commonly desired and previously unknown trick of producing color bars on your Canon GL1. Be advised that these full-field color bars are NOT SMPTE approved and under no circumstances should they be used to calibrate monitors or provide reference colors, because the colors in these bars are not properly set up for that purpose. Instead, these "fake" color bars simply provide a test video signal, and it's something cool which you can show your friends. That's about it.

Now for the trick: turn the GL1 on in "Green Box" (Easy Recording) mode. Press and hold the D.E. on/off button and the Exposure wheel button for about five seconds. Presto, instant "fake" color bars. What's neat is that you can turn the Program dial to any other shooting mode, and then back to Green Box, and they're still there. Have fun dreaming up uses for these bars, as long as you make certain not to screw up your video by trying to adjust a monitor with them. I've said this twice now, to impress upon you the fact that these are not proper color bars, not by a long shot.

Many thanks to Brooks Collins, of Stanford, California who showed me this trick in person, when I said I thought it couldn't be done. Brooks discovered something that isn't in the GL1 Service Manual... it's something Canon USA had no idea about. What a neat Easter Egg after all these years!

October 2001: Link added in the navigation bar to the DVinfoNet Community boards.

June 2001: The Resources section has been updated with links to the official Canon GL1 Owner's Manual (in Adobe Acrobat .PDF format) and Jeff Kramer's GL1 Universe.

This little fellow isn't housebroken yet, so please ignore the mess. Page Two puts everything in perspective. The Reports section provides first-hand GL1 experiences, while the Articles deal with specific topics. Here are some Resources for other GL1 info elsewhere on the Net. Remember, he's just a puppy, so don't play too rough!