New XL2 HD camera:

http://www.canon-sales.co.jp/dv/line...kit/point.html
http://www.usa.canon.com/templatedat...40713_xl2.html

Moderator edit: I have split off this thread from the long
thread we have about building our own camera since
it has no place there.
- Rob Lohman

Wayne, the new XL2 is NOT HD. See my specs thread

The XL2 Watchdag is open as well.

It does however have 960 x 720 CCD blocks which you could say is a
form of HD. It just doesn't let you use it.

I was just following that up, just read it and it's not HD (as people have been anticipating). I posted it because so many people have been waiting for it.

Unfortunately, their news release makes it sound like it has 962 x 480 pixels 16:9 recording, but I doubt it. Lets hope this does not replace a 720p camera XL.

I don't want to plug XL2 modifications here, but want to mention it has a SDK kit. If they could program it to raw by firewire, and miss-align the CCD's they could output an artificial 1440 by 960 matrix (one CCD moves down half a pixel one moves accross half a pixel). So that would be good for another thread, or for discussion on Jaun's DVX100 RAW thread.

Now if it's $5K, and the HDV Sony is $7K (I read somebody saying). That puts our project in very competitive standing.

Thanks

Wayne.

Actually it's too bad that Canon didn't license DVCProHD from Panasonic, because 960x720 is the actual resolution that the Varicam records to tape, and then on playout outputs a full 720p signal. In other words the Varicam, while the CCD's are 1280x720, does some pre-filtering before recording to tape like the F900, so the actual resolution on tape isn't the full 1280x720, the 1280 becomes 960.

So the XL2 could very easily become a "little varicam", and even record onto DV tape (DVCProHD is a DV codec, although the tape would have to run four times as fast to record all that information, I'm not sure the tape format would like that), but anyways, Canon could have easily had a HD camera here that would be natively editable in FCP-HD.

Someone else mentioned that with an anamorphic adapter
(1.33 aspect ratio?) it would end up being 1280 x 720 (if the
full chip where used). Or is an anamorphic adapter 1.77?

There has been technology to allow the mini-dv format to do 10 times more data for years, but it is not used. This would enable RAW recording on a larger format tape, but disks are the cheap format for that.

If the silly thing was HD it would be good news for us, as a competitor, but if anybody wants to do custom SDK High definition version to disk via firewire, please post here. At these ridculouse pricings, our custom cam HD cameras will look excellently cheaper and better. I personally would rather the latter camera.

I'm not so sure our camera would be that much cheaper.
Definitely not much. You will at least pay $2500 for the camera
parts. Then a computer or other hardware, lenses, LCD screen,
harddisk, casing for the camera. Goes up fast. Not to mention
a form of audio recording....

Sorry, Rob, I should have been more clearer.

The SD version costs $5K, so the HD version might be $7K, and for that price we can give them a much better deal.