XL2 widescreen signalling? (DVD recording purposes)
 

Hi all,

At work we have a Canon XL2 camcorder, and are just starting to shoot in 16:9 mode.

We want to be able to dub straight from the camcorder to a DVD recorder, for the purpose of quickly making demo copies of raw footage for clients without having to capture/author via computer. It is essential that the discs are correctly 16:9 tagged, so that they will play back without distortion on clients' 4:3 displays.

I've been researching various DVD recorders, and it appears that most of them do not support manually specifying a 16:9 tag during recording (much to my disgust). They rely on the source device including a widescreen 'tag' in the video signal, that the DVD recorder can detect (and then tag the disc as necessary). I gather that this signal tag is known as "ID-1".

Does anyone know if the Canon XL2 outputs this tag over S-Video and/or i.Link (the two main connections that DVD recorders support)?

Thanks,

-Bon

It does over the S-Video connection. They make reference in the manual that if your viewing device recognizes the flag, it will display correctly. Oddly enough, I have a 16:9 tv but the s-video doesn't see this flag. So, maybe your dvd recorder can see this flag coming through the s-video port. As for I-link, you would need to tell the receiving device that you are feeding anamorphic widescreen so that it knows to adjust the pixel aspect ratio during capture. Even 16:9 video is recorded as 720X480, just with a different pixel aspect ratio.

-gb-

My widescreen tv doesn't recognise the 16:9 flag either, I have to switch it manually, but the manual for my camera clearly says it sets the flag over s-video. I don't know how many tvs actually recognise the flag.

I'd take your camera along and try before you buy. Ideally you'd want it to work over firewire to save a DA-AD conversion.

Thanks for the info, guys.

It's interesting that your TV's do not recognise the flag... maybe there are different ways of flagging supported by different manufacturers? There's surprisingly little info on the net about this as far as I can tell...

I've received confirmation that one Sony recorder definitely has a manual 16:9 flag option in the recording settings (i.e, one that doesn't require the incoming video stream to be flagged). It's the top-end model and out of our price range, unfortunately, but maybe the lower-end ones have it too. I would have thought this an essential feature, and one so easy to implement that I can't work out why it isn't a standard feature of all models.

-Bon

Hi,

This is confusing to me. I have a panasonic dvdr recorder. I've been making movies using 4:3 and want to do one in 16:9 with my XL2. I want to be able to use the Panasonic recorder to make copies and backups. Will I be able to? Thanks for any advice or clarification you can give me.

Lucinda