That's about right for the BP930 battery in the GL1. Your manual should tell you what to expect. It really depends on how much you zoom, how much you rewind, whether you use the lcd screen or viewfinder, etc. All of these functions draw power. If you plan to do quite a bit of shooting I'd recommend getting a couple of the BP941 high-capacity batteries (or its Lenmar equivalent).

question's on gl-1 from the new guy
 

hi all, very soon i'll be buying a canon gl-1. i plan on making a dv feature in my hometown back in georgia (i just found out they have electricity there now). i would much rather get an xl-1 but if i get a gl-1 i can get many other things with it (bogen tripod, sennheiser shotgun mic). what i want to do is get the best picture out of the tiny camera. i'll be doing this with filters and such. i would like to get a wide angle attachment. this means that i cannot use an anamorphic attachment i assume. because they both screw in the front of the lens. what i plan to do is tape off my monitor to 16:9. that way i can keep letterbox composition and simply crop off in editing. now i'm hearing that an anamorphic attachment is a better idea, but i don't want to go without a wide angle adapter. what am i to do?

There might be a way to have both...you should research on that. I'd like to find out myself. Does anybody know for sure?

From what I understand there are three ways of creating widescreen footage to be played back on a widescreen TV.

1) Simply film in 4:3, leaving the most important aspects of the video in the middle. Then crop the footage later in Post-Production. Then on playback, you would have to blow this up on a widescreen TV.

2) Use the Electronic 16x9 squeeze mode on your GL-1. This electronic stretches the image, which can then be unsqueezed in regular widescreen mode on a widescreen tv. OR it can be unstretched in Post-production with bars added if needed.

3) Use an anamorphic attachment

You get better resolution going from 1 to 3 with 3 being the best with no resolution loss. 2 is better than 1 but you still get some resolution loss because it's not a true anamorphic effect.

If you want to have both 16x9 and the wide angle adapter (and you can't have both the anamorphic adapter and then wide angle adapter), I would go with number 2 and the wide angle adapter.

By the way, let us know how things go. I just bought a GL-1 myself and so far things are going great.

Cute!

How long did it take for your rebate to arrive. I think I sent mine in about a week ago.

yeah but...
 

yeah, but i've heard that the 16:9 mode on the camera is something not to be used for some reason. it's a cheesey effect, not a true one. or something like that.

Congratulations on getting a GL-1. It's really a fine camera and I'm sure you'll get alot out of it. For ad-hoc shooting its small size makes it handier than an XL1 and, since it uses basically the same imaging technology as an XL1 you can get very ccomparable footage from it.

Canon's wide-angle adapter for the GL-1 is a very good piece of glass. I think you'll want it regardless of your 16:9 plans. It's very handy for shooting in tight environments and, by nature, can tend to smooth-out some of the normal jitters associated with handheld shooting. As you noted, however, you cannot mount anything in front of it.

But optical anamorphic adapters are, by nature, wide-angle adapters in themselves. So you really wouldn't need to use an additional wide-angle adapter with them. But these gizmos are not inexpensive; Century's weighs in at nearly $900.

My suggestion: Get Canon's wide-angle adapter and play around with the in-camera 16:9 feature while you're learning the camera's basic handling and while you're still discovering/collecting the many incidentals of your kit. The built-in 16:9 facility does indeed basically mask-out and squish the image to the wider aspect ratio. But with a wide-angle adapter you can come reasonably close (for non-professional and less expensive purposes) to the effect that you might see with an optical anamorphic adapter. Yoo can always pop for the 16:9 adapter later if your needs really dictate it.

Have fun!

bokkus, you can use the in-camera 16x9 mode if you want. People are probably saying not to use it because it's not a true anamorphic stretch...which is absolutely true. No consumer/prosumer level dv camera has a true 16x9 anamorphic in-camera effect...yet!

BUT...the built in 16x9 mode still gives a slightly better resolution than cropping.

Go to this guys website who might be able to explain it better than me.

http://members.macconnect.com/users/b/ben/index.html

Been so long I forget- think I sent it in around Christmas

this stuff helps very much
 

much thanks to you guys. i just got word that my gl-1 will have to wait a little longer but when i get it, i'm shooting a digital feature. i'm on the verge of graduating from fullsail down in florida. so i'm not exactly an amateur. the gl-1 is all i can afford right now but i want to get the most film image possible.

What's "fullsail"?

fullsail
 

fullsail is a mulitmedia school in orlando florida. they offer degrees in film/video, audio, show production, video game design, computer animation, and digital medias. it's a two year degree that you can complete in 13 months. www.fullsail.com

How would you rate your experience at this place? If you had it to do again, would you?

Eight to 10 weeks is typical for rebates.

the answer is a resounding no...
 

i paid 30 thousand dollars to go to this film school for 13 months. their motto is "we take your dreams seriously". what a load! while i was in the scriptwriting class i wrote something. a script about a magnet school soley dedicated to young evil kids. a school to teach them how to be overlords. it was funny too. most of the scripts that get made into movies here are all about violence, lesbians, and the mob. and mine was picked to make into a 16 mm film. then i failed a 32 hour film history class. the teacher couldn't teach. you would think that i could make it up since it was so small a class. no. they yanked my script. then two months later the same exact thing happened to a friend. got his script picked and failed the same damn class. but he bitched enough and got it made. this school sucks, and would advise anyone reading this to go somewhere else.

i'm still venting.

If you feel strongly that the school misrepresents itself and that you have a truly legitimate basis for complaint (other than just failing a class) you should consider "venting" to the Florida States Attorney's office by filing a formal complaint.

WOW!!! and I thought I got shafted with my "education". Compared to you, my experience is almost not worth mentioning. I just graduated Dec, 2001 from the University of Utah with a BA in film studies. They don't have a motto, I don't even think they have a film department. If they can call that a film department, I think any Kindergarten in the coutry could have one. Complete waste of time and money. Of course I *only* have about $4,500 worth of debt left so I guess I don't have as much to fume about. I'm glad to hear that you're determined to make the feature, many people wouldn't be after going through this. You see for many people the excuse you have is better than an achievement, because an achievement no matter how great leaves you having to prove yourself once again in the future, but an excuse can last for a lifetime. Good luck with it.

Excuse me, Ken, but I think you might be referring to the BP915 included with the GL1 kit. The BP915 will barely last a little over an hour. The BP930 will give me more than three hours on the GL1, and I've shot with a single BP945 that literally lasted all day long with the GL1.

Quite right Chris. My error. I was thinking of the "standard" battery (knowing that mdreyes23 just got a new GL1) but referenced the 930. My apologies for the mis-reference.

FYI,

Sabah Oceanic (http://www.sabahoceanic.com/vcanon.html) has incredible prices on Canon replacement batteries. Ordered two BP-924s for $65.60 (includes shipping, no tax). I've used one and it seems to last as long as the AC-Delco 924 I got with my GL-1 package. It's brain-dead (no intelligence) but quite servicable.

These are obviosly Japanese 924 knockoffs from a Malasian reseller and caveat emptor, but at these prices it's hard to resist. Also, shipping took 2 days. These guys are good.

Cheers,

Bruce

BP-930R with CA-910?
 

Hey, I just found a local Canon dealer which is great. They pretty much have all Canon accessories in stock.

Quick question for you guys. Their website says that the BP930R has to be used with the CH910 Dual Battery Charger/Holder. Is this true?

I bought the bp930r anyway and have been charging it on my CA-910 which came with my GL1. It seems like it's charging, but thought I'd ask anyway because it's been on single blink for a long time.

Timecode
 

Hey guys!

I have a weird question. I have a short film (video) that I shot with two different cameras. Said film was dubbed to miniDV from Final Cut Pro with my GL1. I want to send a copy of this tape to a composer so he can work on the music for it.

He's going to need a timecode as a reference on the tape I send and I'm not sure how to do that. I checked the GL1 manual and the timecode that I got it to display on the current tape is all over the place. It's not even really a timecode, it's more like a date and time stamp. All I really need is a counter for the guy.

Anyway, I'm new to a lot of this, so if any of you know how to do this, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.

This is really a Final Cut Pro question. I thought Final Cut Pro could show a timecode window burn. Anybody?

Need Help - Problem with converting VSH to GL-1
 

Hello all,

I am new to digital video, but I have a GL-1 and I was converting a VHS tape to the GL-1 and Had a problem with video noise at the top of the screen. When I was viewing on the TV screen, I did not see any problem, but viewing via the monitor on the GL-l I seen the video problem. My question - Since the problem did not occur on the TV screen, can I have a problem with my setting on the GL-1? If so, what are the correct setting. Is this a normal issue when converting from VHS to digital? The video quality was good on the VHS tape, but I do not know waht cause the video problem. Again, I had a situation like the tracking was off but it did not show up on the TV screen during the transfer.

Many Thanks in Advance

Kever Conyers
Memphis, TN

Sounds like your VCR may have a problem reading the start of each scan on the VHS tape, not totally unheard of. A TBC might correct it. However, it sounds like it is in the overscan area that is not seen on standard TV sets (only some professional monitors and screen grabs).

Help a newbie...
 

I have a GL1 and Im trying to dump some phootage
to my computer via the firewire.
My problem is the phootage itself comes out slightly jerky and sometimes fuzzy.
I tried both Premiere and VideoWave 3. Both have same results.
Ive saved some of the files and viewed with different viewers but no difference. Is this due to my system:
Athlon 900 with 512 MB ram , hard drive dual partion with OS (Win 98) seperate on a 30 gig 7200 rpm HD. Video card is a G2 gts 32MB.
What do I need to do to rectify this problem?

Thanks

Are you using firewire or analog capture?

Im using firewire.

It might be Windows 98... it could also be your firewire card...
some people have reported problems with their firewire cards
with certain cameras....

Other than that I have no clue...

Flip

Try adding a second drive and blowing off Win 98 and going to W2k. Partitioning is ok but can cause problems like what you are experiencing.

to get the best performance, have one disk with your OS/Apps on it and the other for video filess only. Processor and RAM are fine, but Win98 isn't really up to the video task.

If getting a copy of Win2k is a problem let me know

In FCP go to Effects:Video Filters:Video:Timecode Print and presto.
Sorry I am so late but I didn't see this post untill now.

Rhett

Ive got another 40 gig , 7200 RPM , UDMA 100 drive and also a
7200 RPM , 9.1 gig UWD scsi drive. I will try each of those to see...
along with putting my firwire card into one of my 2000 Machines...
Guess i will have to build a comp just for video editing....

Thanks for the support...

Oh , Afterburner , thanks again for steering me towards the GL1 as I've gotten to use the XL1s now and you were right in saying the GL1 is the better way to go for full on , in the action , filming (skateboarding videos). The XL1s is way to auckward for that.

Don't worry about the SCSI drive, it's way to small. The 40GB ATA100 drive will do the job nicely.

It is best to have a machine just for video. DV demands almost total resourses to perform at it's best. It will work on a non exclusive machine, but if you are doing serious work a DV only machine is the way to go.

I'm stoked you're happy with your camera choice. The GL1 is a great little camera. Don't write off the XL1 though, maybe later down the track you can use one for a second angle, something I find is missing in a lot of low end skate videos. As soon as I have the spare coin, I'm adding a GL1 to my kit so I can do just that.

Enjoy :)

Another newbie, emergency.
 

I just bought a GL-1 and I guess I really should have a left a little time to figure everything out on it. I assumed transferring the video to my laptop would be an easy matter. I have a firewire port and card that connects up to my camera fine, but it won't capture the DV. My computer keeps freezing up. Do I need a separtate capture card is my first question. My second is, do I need software for the GL-1 istelf? Like drivers and stuff? I can't find anything like that on the canon website and wasn't given anything with the camera.

I'm in the process of making a short comedy sketch. The thing has to be edited onto VHS by Wednesday for my portfolio. I have absolute no idea how I'm going to get this done in time. Any input would be really appreciated.

Thanks.

You need editing & capture software that recognizes the GL1. Such as Adobe Premiere, or for a cheao solution, try ArcSoft ShowBiz or ArcSoft Video Impression.

Thanks for the reply. I have Video Wave three, this keeps crashing though. Do I need other software?

You don't need a separate capture card. All you need is a firewire port.

You do not need software specifically for the GL-1.

You do need some type of editing/capture software that recognizes the GL1 as Chris mentions.

That's all you need.

The problem is making sure that everything is compatible. My advice would be to go to the website of the editing/capture software you are using. Make sure you have the latest update for that software. Then go through the support pages and be sure that your firewire port/card is supported by the software. Also make sure you have the right driver installed for you firewire port/card and that it is installed correctly.

For example, I have a firewire card installed in WindowsXP. I use a GL1 and Adobe Premiere. I could not get mine to work for awhile but learned that my card was installed improperly even though I did not see any exclamation points.

Make sure your computer has enough power, don't capture on battery, make sure you your laptop is plugged in as a lot of laptops step the processor speed down when on battery to save power

Thanks for the replies everyone, I'll look into this and get back to you.

Still shots with GL1
 

Anyone got any scoop on what the quality of the stills are shot with a GLI in still mode? And secondly what is the quality when a still is taken from a video frame?
Thanks

The GL1, like the XL1(s), does ok with its stills. Basically it lays down 6 sec of the still onto the tape. Taking frames from moving footage is comparable, depending of course on the amount of motion.

In general, however, video cameras as pretty weak at still photography compared to even modest digital still cameras today. The design objective differences between still and video cameras are fundamental. For example, unlike still cameras, the GL1 can only capture a 720x480 image resolution.

My suggestion is to use a digital still camera for stills and/or simply grab frames from moving GL1 footage if you absolutely need them and only have footage at hand. The "photo" facility on the GL1 and XL1(s) is, in my opinion, a rather silly feature meant to appeal to the "-sumer" side of the "prosumer" video market.