Blue Barn Pictures XL2 Presets Manager discussion thread
 

In case you haven't seen it yet, check out the XL2 Presets Manager software (free to registered DV Info Net members). Sorry but it's for Windows XP at this time; expect a Mac version to follow soon.

• Click here to go to the software download page.
• Click here to read the XL2 Presets Manager software article.

Now that you've downloaded it and played with it for awhile, what do you think about it?

Mac version?
 

How's that Mac version coming?

I'd be interested in trying some of these out. Thanks

Tim,

I havent received the kit for the mac yet. When I do, I'll create the same thing.

steve

Ok, the cat's out of the bag. Hats off to Steve Duke for making this application available to us. I am honored to have been allowed to test the software ahead of time.

So come on fellow XL-2 owners, show us your presets!

regards,

-gb-

Thanks, Steve! You, too, Chris. Excellent article!

Jay

Steve did a great service for all XL2 users! And you will recognize a couple of the clips on the Blue Barn Pictures website. Check them out and show Steve your appreciation for so many long hours of programming to provide us a FREE utility to make our XL2 lives easier.

I've loved using this program during testing. The great features Steve put in it are the capability to:
1. Load presets stored in your camera
2. Create presets on your computer
3. Save presets to your computer
4. Save presets to your camera

Chris included all the Presets I had captured from various threads on this forum here: XL2 Presets

Since these are simple text files save in a specific format the XL2 Manager recognizes, just post a preset in the XL2 Presets forum like listed below and anyone can copy it to Notepad and 'Save As..." to name it with a ".bbp" extension and then open in their XL2 Presets application.

[Presets]
Preset Name = TechniC
Gamma = 1
Knee = 1
Black = 2
NR = 0
VDetail = 0
Color Matrix = 1
Color Gain = 4
Color Phase = 0
Red = 2
Green = 3
Blue = -2
SetupLevel = 0
Sharpness = 0
Coring = 0
MasterPed = 0
Description = Barry Green SuperPolarized Technicolor Dream:

Don't bother typing all this out, just create the preset in the utility, open the preset you save to your computer in Notepad, copy the text and paste it into your post. Life is good!

Kudos Steve Duke and Blue Barn Pictures!!! Chris, thanks for hosting this!

MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION! MAC VERSION!

please......

Ok Matthew, we get the idea. Did you not read Steve's comment about not having the OSX SDK yet? See, that's why I have both platforms in my house. I get the best of both worlds.

-gb-

For those of you who are using the software, how do you like it?

i might be retarded, slow, or missed a read, but what is this preset?

It's excellant. Just the preset renaming alone is a great feature, being able to assign a meaninful title to a preset. This software now means that any setup can be saved & loaded at ease and be able to see the actual numbers rather than the slider presented on the camera itself.

Future feature maybe, being able to store the rest of the camera settings (even if this is just meta data stored in human readable form) such as frame mode, aspect ratio, shutter, etc so you can maintain a list of camera setups. I know we all do this anyway :)

Good work.

Robert,
Do you have an XL2? On the XL2, Canon has provided the capability to store and recall three "Presets". Each "Preset" contains the user selectable values for 15 camera parameters, such as Gamma, Knee, Black, Color Matrix, Coring, and ten others. Until now, XL2 owners had to create and maintain their "Presets" in the camera, possibly writing them down for future use if they wanted to create/use a new one. Steve's application permits us to have our computer read and store the "Presets" so that we can maintain an entire library of "looks" available to download to the camera to suit our needs. "Presets" are discussed on pages 66 through 72 of the XL2 user manual.

Great description there, Patrick! And in case anybody missed it the first time:

• Click here to go to the XL2 Presets Manager software download page.
• Click here to read the XL2 Presets Manager software description article.

I have used it and love it.

I am curious how the XL2 responds when in Ext. Ctrl mode. I had the software connected through firewire and also had the XL2 connected to the production monitor via S-video. It appears that in EXT. CTRL mode acts like it is in auto mode. I played with changing settings on the fly and updating the presets and the camera would update and reflect the changes as I submitted them from the software.

However the XL2 defaults to 4x3, 60i and autogain and who knows what color balance.. The changes I made looked different when I went back to manual mode. Unfortunately this makes on the fly adjustments impossible from the software, unless someone else has an idea to work around this.

Other than that it is a great tool.

That's a fair comment, Marty. That's why I've tried to position this software as a management tool more than a creative tool. You're still much better off actually creating the preset in the camera. The Presets Manager application is a great solution for maintaining and updating a library of favorite presets.

The only complaint I have with changing the presets in camera is the instantaneous feedback isn't there. I change 1 setting and want to compare it to another preset and I have to toggle and move positions and it makes it hard to compare. With the software you click to send to camera and you get instant feedback.....however the EXT. CTRL setting skews it.

Still great to have and manage.

Hallelujah!
 

Wow, what a time/brain saver!

Hats off to the developers. This reminds me of the MIDI sysex programs I used to use to store my complex synth settings. It's great to take a process that's cumbersome and slow, and make it very useful and practical.

Before, I had to go to the trouble of re-working Matt Cherry's template into a portable form (business card size) to carry a ton of settings with me. Now it's academic, but feel free to use it if you want:

http://www.geocities.com/amjoyce2004

Exactly Andy! Think of this app as a patch editor/librarian like our synths use.

-gb-

Really? Even if the switches are physically set to 16:9 and 24P. I'll have to look at that.

-gb-

When you first put the camera into EXT. CTRL. it displays a little A inside the box that looks like auto mode. Then the gain light came on (assuming that the camera thinks it should be gained up) and the image on my monitor went to 4x3 and 60i. I am guessing the white balance was in auto too as all the adjustments I made looked completely off when I moved back to manual mode. I should point out that none of these are displayed on-screen. There is no indicators that you are in 60i or 4x3 or gain (except light). But it is obvious to your naked eye.

Hi guys,

I glad your all enjoying the application.

I'll let you know why I decided with the standard presets only. Inside the camera is a processor which handles all the operation instructions. Imagine all the external functions you see on the camera as a computer keyboard. The keys are not directly connected with the function they perform, but rather, send a signal to the processor to perform the action.

When you move the dial to a particular setting, the processor will react to the key sequence sent to it. Thats why in green box mode, a lot of the 'key' functions dont work.

When you select Ext. Cont. mode, the processor ignores ALL the keys and expects direction from the firewire cable. Consider each time you change the dial position as hitting the reset switch on your PC.

I can set anything in the camera, however, when you move the dial, you reset the camera processor, and it will look at the dial position to ascertain the correct startup controls and settings.

There are a few resident features that do not get reset, primarily, the presets.

I hope this helps.

steve

Dear Booth Monkey,

I just had a fun time using your program, XL2 Presets Manager, and Canon's program, DV-PC.

In about twenty minutes time I was able to capture footage of the same scene with 6 presets applied. I loaded the first three with XL2 Preset Manager, close the program and turned the Power Dial to a record mode, opened DV-PC, and recorded a 30 second clip directly to disk. I then invoked another of the presets downloaded in the cam, and recorded another 30 second clip. After recording the third preset's clip, I rotated the Power Dial back to EXT CONT, launched your program, downloaded three more presets and repeated the capture process to acquire clips for each.

Then I could evaluate them all at the same time in Vegas by just placing them on tracks named for the preset and muting all but the track I wanted to view.

Great fun and way easier than doing it all manually. Thanks again Steve! And how about telling us how you got that tag-line below your name, is there a story there?

>And how about telling us how you got that tag-line below your name, is there a story there?

And pictures too!

steve

Steve,

I just occured to me that from yesterdays multi-preset capture, I think I'm going to create a Presets Smartbook. I'm going to select a screen grab from each of the Preset video files, and then do an "ALT/PrintScreen" on your XL2 Presets Manager program showing the same preset, then place both in a Word document and print on 8x10 photo paper, whole punch, and place them all in a binder. That way I have not only a name for the Preset, but an example I can relate to of what the preset looks like.

Just an idea.

No problemo, Greg.

Steve, do you mean literally anything, and thus, also focus, IS, zoom, etc., which are controlled by the knobs on the lens? Or does anything in the camera mean anything in the XL2 body?

Second, what kind of programming skills one needs to use the SDK?

I have been insanely busy but this is what I have always wanted. I prolly have 50+ presets I use for different things. I havent had a chance to mess around with the software but are the preset files something that can be posted and downloaded? If not, that is the next step. As always, I will share all my settings openly and for FREE....



ash =o)

Chris already has a bunch of presets posted. You can download them and automatically push them to your camera. If you can get in touch with Chris and get some or all of your "50" presets uploaded we would greatly appreciate it. The beauty is that you can go into the software. Quickly key in your settings and save the file to your HD. Repeat and rinse. In 5-10 minutes you could feasibly have them all saved. And they are so small you could upload fast. What would take the longest is naming them and giving them a usable description. Come on....you know you want to!

:)


Peace!

Yeah, what he said! Ash you'll notice that one or two of the ones Chris posted originally here are actually some you posted in a forum and Chris or Steve loaded prior to the 'grand rollout'. You're famous already...now lets see how famous by posting the other 50!

Thanks Ash, and drop Steve a line and tell him and Blue Barn how much you like the XL2 Presets Manager.

Hey Ash, see this thread:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=48287

As Patrick has pointed out, several of those are indeed your settings.

You should probably contact me by email!

The middle of the month wont be as busy for me... I will get some more going then. Feel free to email me Chris...



ash =o) ashVID@aol.com

trouble with Blue barn software
 

Chris,
Excuse this if you got a previous email, but a guy helping me snet it from your closed thread, and I'm not sure if you got it. Anyways...
We installed Blue barn, but it won't recognize the XL2( says 'cant find camera"). We also downloaded Canon's pc dv recorder software, and that works fine. In addition, we connected to Vegas, and thatt captured the xl2 perfectly.
We set the xl2 to "ext control' and had the dv control on.I have never used it with another xl2. We downloaded the presets, but of course couldn't do anything with them.
Thanks
Bruce S. Yarock

Hi Bruce,

Sorry to hear this -- let me see if I can summon some outside help.

Chris,
We got it working.We found that the avc driver had not installed in the device manager,"yellow?"( It didn't install the driver on its'own).. We updated the driver,went ble barn folder,and installed the driver. Now it works great. Thanks to you guys and blue barn.
Here's a realted question-In order to load a preset into the xl, the xl has to be in ext.con. We loaded the preset "documantary" to the xl2. Then we turned off etx. cont.,and swithed to manual, the look changed from what we viewed when we were about to load it. Does this make sense?
Also, we stumbled upon the Canon dv to pc recorder ( on Canon's site), and it works great. It won't , however,let you capture tape to the pc, only live shooting.
Thanks again
Bruce S. Yarock

The look changed from what you viewed when you were about to load it... not quite sure I follow your meaning. When in Ext. Cont. mode, when you hit "set preset" in the BlueBarn app, you'll see the look of that preset in the XL2 viewfinder. Then when you switch to one of the camera program modes, the look in the viewfinder should change because you haven't toggled on the custom preset yet. If you get what I mean.

At any rate, glad to hear you've got it going!

In external ctrl mode the XL2 seems to go into some very generic settings that you cannot control. Here is what I observed.

Defaults to 60i (obvious to an experience 24P user)
Defaults to 4x3 (umm...duh...you can see this)
defaults to auto WB (not so obvious but it happens)
defaults to auto gain
defaults to auto shutter

YOu cannot see a readout of this but I fooled around and could see this.

THe gain light was on. The shutter light came on and the colors went south (WB)

So I think that you have to disregard what you are seeing on the camera until you move back into a "real" camera mode and not the ext. ctrl.

It would be sweet to tweak your camera setting from the PC in real time but it just doesn't seem possible.

You know Marty, I'm thinking that a more robust application would be able to take complete control and adjust those 'defaults' to whatever mode you wanted to. So, don't lose site of your dream of tweaking presets in real-time just yet.

Not confirmed, just a supposition on my part.

-gb-

Marty,
Thanks for the info. I thought I was going crazy when I saw one look in ext. and then a completely different one back in manual (cam control).So what you're saying is that you can't preview the setting until you actually load it into the xl2, and swithc back to a recording mode?
Bruce S. Yarock

That is still way quicker than the old method of manually putting each setting in throught the Menu commands on the cam.

Yes Bruce, that is correct, as I explained in the Presets Manager article located at:

http://www.dvinfo.net/canonxl2/articles/article15.php

-- second paragraph from the bottom. Pretty much everything you need to know about this application is there; hopefully you read it before downloading the software!

By the way I have merged this thread with our original discussion about the Presets Manager app; we need to keep all of these posts under one roof. Thanks,