Superimposed Data Transfer
 

Hello!

The last time I had a question that only an amateur couldn't answer many of you were kind enough to come to my aid. Unfortunately, I am full of questions that I can't answer.

I know I am going to make this more complicated sounding than it was, but...there was an image issue and an audio issue, and they were intertwined.

When last using my XL-1, S-Video cabled into a Sony DSR-45 deck, I noticed that there was unwanted data from the monitor being transferred to the deck. Even after "turning off" as much of the data as possible there was still a couple of things there.

Obviously, I would have prefered to FireWire to the deck. However, we wanted to use a lav mic and a tabletop mic. When using FireWire it appeared to cancel the deck's phantom powered mic inputs. So we couldn't use the tabletop mic, since the XL-1 doesn't supply phantom power.

We thought by switching to S-Video, we could then use the deck's phantom power to get a second track of audio from the tabletop mic. But that's when we couldn't get rid of the on-screen data.

In the end we used the FireWire, on-camera mic for general room sound, and the lav mic. But the on-camera mic obviously couldn't pick up what we needed as well as the tabletop mic.

We figure that simply having another, separate, power source for the tabletop mic is one work-around, but if we were to use S-Video again, is there a way to completely remove the on-screen data that transfers to the deck?

Whew! Sorry about "War and Peace". And thanks for any help you can give to a slow learner.

David

If I understand your question correctly, you are seeing XL1 timecode and/or exposure information displayed on your monitor. These are enabled/disabled on the analog outputs through the DISP SET UP/TV SCREEN menu. See page 114 of the users manual. You can also program one of the Custom Keys to turn TV on or off and there is a button on the remote that will do it as well.

This information applies to the XL1S. I'm assuming it is the same for the XL1.

On the XL1 it is *ONLY* switchable from the remote control, if I'm
not mistaken!

Other way would be to capture it into the PC and do the dubbing
there and stay digital all the way!

Also another way might be to add a seperate phantom power
unit.