View Full Version : hour count trick


Brian Doyle
September 26th, 2005, 09:37 PM
Does anyone here know how to find out the hour count on a GL2 camera? How about a XL1s and a xl2? I know that most cameras have a hiden trick to tell the time the camera has been used.

Boyd Ostroff
September 27th, 2005, 03:25 AM
Brian, I've removed your cross-posts of this same question from the XL1 and XL2 forums. Sorry, but we don't allow cross-posting at DVinfo, please see the following for more info:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/announcement.php?f=20&announcementid=23

Thanks for your cooperation.

Don Palomaki
September 27th, 2005, 04:09 AM
Your question comes up periodically. I do not recall reading of a successful answer for the XL1 series or the GL series and it is not shown in the service manual for the XL1. You mgiht try a search of each of the forums.

Chris Hurd
September 27th, 2005, 06:12 AM
There is no trick that I'm aware of for any of the Canon camcorders, plus, Canon Service will not divulge this info. Prior to selling my XL1, I sent it in for one last cleaning and final check-up and I asked 'em to please report the number of hours that were on it... the answer back was simply "we don't provide that information, sorry."

Steve Olds
September 27th, 2005, 06:56 AM
Can't supply,Don't supply or will not supply. Maybe they don't have a way to tell. Unless ....they use this hidden hour meter for warrany and for their own use. The world may never know. Steve

Brian Doyle
September 27th, 2005, 06:37 PM
First sorry for cross posting. I was unaware that it's not done here. Second maybe there is someone out there who works for cannon who will be our deep thoat about how to do this. I can't believe that cannon wouldn't hide a way to check the hours. I think it also only helps them if people know the hours on a camera. If you think about it. If you're looking at a used camera with 100 hours that sounds like a lot even though it may not be. I wonder how many sales cannon lost to people who bought used cameras instead of the new one they would've had known the hours on the used camera.

Chris Hurd
September 27th, 2005, 06:54 PM
First sorry for cross posting. I was unaware that it's not done here.Dang. I gotta figure out how to make this more obvious:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/announcement.php?f=20&announcementid=23

Let's see, where's that code for blinking text?

Boyd Ostroff
September 27th, 2005, 07:14 PM
The sony "pro" cameras (PD-170, PDX-10, HVR-Z1 and HVR-A1) allow you to access this data from the menus. But on other Sony cameras you can read the internally stored statistics using a special wired remote control which plugs into the LANC port.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=16815

You can get one here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?p=181342&postcount=5

Unfortunately, I don't think it will do anything for you on a Canon camcorder...

Don Palomaki
September 27th, 2005, 07:27 PM
Before fussing too much about cross posts, the question related to three different camcorders, and thus could have had three different responses were the internals different. Would anyone have fussed if only one was mentioned in each post (the one for that forum)?

On lack of a run-time counter: Given that warranty is based on date first purchased, not hours, there is no need for the hour meter for warranty purposes. To be meaningful, the hour meter would have to count all time the heads are spinning on the tape; i.e., record, playback, and pause.

But hours only partly correlate to wear, that will also depend on the tape used, how often it is cleaned with a dry cleaning tape, the environment in which it is used, etc. There is no specific time-based maintenance requirement as with many systems, especially commercial systems that may operae 24/7.