Man Chris, you have been busy this morning.

Well fortunately I can't afford a new camera now :) So I'll have the luxury of waiting to see what Sony comes up with in the HDV realm and see if Canon brings an XL2-HD next year.

The "super range OIS"is the same as used on the XL1s. It has OIS driven by gyro sensors and actuators and it interprets the motion vector on the CCD's, not for correcting the CCD read-out like EIS does, but for generating extra correction info on the OIS system for "slow"shakes which are difficult to be detected by gyro's

Really great work on the new XL2 Watchdog Chris!

A hell lot of information.... and pictures... whoa... but the greatest of all: It is all up and running on the day the cam was announced!!!

Andre is quite right. There are several flavors of OIS, and the Super-Range VAP type in the Canon XL series is the best.

Well shoot guys, now your making me all paranoid about Canon coming out with an HD version in a few months or next year! <=D

I dunno, I could stick with my GL1 for awhile longer I guess. It should be good enough for college projects.

nice....
 

great work chris for putting together ALL the info on xl2, i'm not into hdv editing yet, and i'm not sure who is out there and/or who is familiar with editing issues in hd, but i doubt half the complainers would not be able to afford an hd version if it did come out... the features look slick but still the price is pretty steep, i'm glad though because my xl1s will still keep it's value for a while longer... i may just have to go out and pick up the new pana gs400 to hold me over for a while...

-dr

<<<-- Originally posted by Scott Balkum : Let's not forget, there are no 1/3" 3-ccd HDV cameras out there. -->>>

For that matter the XL-2 is the first 1/3" 3-chip camera with native 16:9...

I've been waiting forever for a 1/3" 3CCD with HQ Widescreen but ouch on the price.

How long did it take before the XL1S prices started dropping "legitimately" below $4000?

The real question with regard to the 16:9 function is how the extra pixels are written to tape. This resolution appears to conform neither to the DV standard nor to the HDV standard. Anybody have the straight dope?

quote:
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For that matter the XL-2 is the first 1/3" 3-chip camera with native 16:9...
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The XL2 isnt native 16:9... its a 4:3 chip that is chopped.

Native 16:9 seems to have a lot of confusion, let's add some facts
in here, okay?

1) the CCD chips in the XL2 are NOT widescreen in ratio, they are 4:3 indeed (as Jarred says)

2) however, the 16:9 mode DOES USE MORE resolution than the 4:3 (which is also better than the XL1S 4:3 mode)

So in this case it IS native 16:9 since it is not made from electronic
stretching in which you LOOSE resolution. So the chips do not
have an actual 16:9 aspect, but they will produce native 16:9.

Perhaps true 16:9 is a better word than native 16:9 in this
regard. The XL2 does actually GAINS resolution in regards to it's
4:3 mode.

So it is simply not using it's full VERTICAL height of the CCD's.
Is this a problem? Not really since it still uses more pixels in its
16:9 mode than any of the competition.

It's just a bit less suited as a 4:3 camera, perhaps (due to
increase focal lengths and shortened DoF). It still has more
resolution in 4:3 mode than the XL1S does, however!

<<<-- Originally posted by Robert Knecht Schmidt : The real question with regard to the 16:9 function is how the extra pixels are written to tape. This resolution appears to conform neither to the DV standard nor to the HDV standard. Anybody have the straight dope? -->>>

It's still DV, there are no extra pixels written to tape, only extra pixels sampled on the CCD. The signal from the sensors is then converted to regular DV.

Rob, it seems the only element we are still missing is how this all translates in regards to the XL2's low-light capabilites. It would seem not to be a strong selling point for the XL2, since it is never mentionned as such by Canon.

However, for most indies, I believe higher resolution is much more important than higher low-light capabilities. You can always add some lighting...

Oh, and the GS400 claims to make use of 1156x646 pixels in 16:9 mode, which is a bit more than the XL2. Not that you could really compare both cameras...

Hmmmm. Not a home run Canon, but a double.

I think I would buy a dvx100a and add a anamorphic lens instead.

Still waiting on HD. Sharp, where are you?