New XL-2 tomorrow, anything we MUST do first?
 

A friend and I are getting an XL-2 tomorrow from Zotz.

We have ordered a Tiffen UV filter as well as a few Panasonic MQ tapes.

Is there anything we MUST or SHOULD do when we open up the camera? Or is it just ready out-of-box to go and shoot?

Like in regards to charging, do we have to fully charge the battery?

What tips do you have for us as we will be opening the XL-2 for the first time tomorrow... Anything we should do/look out for?

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Second main question: I've searched and found something on these forums but get conflicting posts elsewhere. I know that I should not use the XL-2 as a deck (to get footage onto my computer via firewire)... BUT since I plan on shooting 24p 16x9 with the XL-2, will ANY cheapo camera with firewire out and a miniDV drive work (even if it doesn't shoot 24p and 16x9, which the cheap ones don't)... I mean, will I sacrifice quality? Or will I get the pure signal and content from my XL-2-shot footage being outputted via firewire to my computer through some cheapo sub-$300 MiniDV camera?

Thanks a lot in advance.
You guys here are great... I'm learning a lot.

Cheers!

Hi Joe,
First off, Congratulations on the anticipated arrival of the stork bringing your new baby (Canon XL2) - I'm sure you will certainly enjoy it. When mine arrived a little over a year ago, I remember I spent much of the day pacing by the front door with my hands behind my back, and every time I heard a truck outside, I approached the door and peeked through the peephole to see if it was the UPS truck. Later in the day, I realized my 1 1/2 year old daughter was doing the same thing - walking up to the door every 10 minutes and putting her face against it...with her hands behind her back...she was too short to reach the peephole, but she was trying to imitate her papa.

Your camera will not be ready to shoot right out of the box. There is some assembly required - specifcally, mounting the viewfinder, the stereo mic, and the lens. (There is also a little battery to insert in there somewhere as well - to remember date, time & memory settings etc.) There is a setup manual to be found in the package, and you will need to study it and follow the instructions carefully, especially when mounting the lens - it is heavy and must be properly mounted to avoid scratching anything or shorting out the circuitry.

I posted a little tour of photos documenting the opening of the package and basic setup of my XL2. It is pretty basic and slapped together - and not very well, but at least you can get an idea as to how to navigate your packaging.

The site is located at:
http://homepage.mac.com/lunarparcel/...oAlbum127.html

As far as the other questions...There shouldn't be much of a problem using your XL2 as a deck. Many folks do it. It is designed as a device for moving and the tape, after all. With that being said, given whatever amount of time you anticiapte running the deck during captures, it is also an option to get a secondary lower end cam or capture deck for that purpose....I think many more people do this.....as do I. Saving space on my desk, and wear on my XL2 heads.

Regarding the frame rate and ratio settings...I may be out of my league here, but my understanding is that the MiniDV camcorder is always going to shoot 30 fps at 60i (NTSC) - no matter what the settings are. - As such, it will play back in other camcorder, usually without any problem. The other settings - for (30p, 24p, etc) are part of data coding that tells the NLE how to process the data.

I think that this is also the case with 16x9, that it may not even view correctly in another cam (?) depending upon the features of the cam, but will be correctly captured into the NLE - so long as the capture settings are set up in the NLE to capture in 16x9 - basically, I think this part is dependent upon your NLE capture settings. Hopefully somone will be able to verify this for you....I haven't shot in 16x9 yet.

I hope this helps.
Enjoy
-Jon

I strongly recommend running a head cleaning cassette first, for about five or six seconds, before you put in that the first DV tape. By the way Jon -- great pics!

Any recommendations for specific head cleaning cassettes? Since I'm using Panasonic MQ's for the regular tape...? What should I use for the cleaning?

Do many others also THUMBS UP this one?

Cheers.

Running the head cleaner tape is actually recommended in the manual. I use a pannasonnic head cleaner, as I run pannasonic tapes through it. I have a sony head cleaner that I use on my DSR-11 deck.

My little Canon ZR 80 ($300, pretty crumby), captures the video and audio without any quality loss. Video heads are videoheads. A Mini DV tape is simply a magnetic strip with info on it. Your XL2 records 24p info onto the tape and any Mini DV device can read the 24p, 16:9 info... it might not siplay it properly on the little camera LCD (cause the cam doesn't understand it), but it will still churn out those 1's and 0's to your comp.

I do it all the time...


BTW. Just make sure you never mount or unmount a lens with the power on... trust me.

Owch... I should have ordered the cleaning tape from Zotz too...

I'm looking at Amazon and can't really find Panasonic cleaning tapes (unavailable),... Also tries BestBuy.com and they have cheapo brands... Where would I be able to find these on short notice?

And NICE pics Jonathan-- Really helpful, and I'm a bit less worried... +The battery charge info...

Cheers!

I'm pretty confident that any head cleaning cassette will do the job. For the record, I shoot nothing but Panasonic tapes, but I use a Sony head cleaner because that's what I could get at the time. It's been several years with this arrangement, and I've never had a problem. Shouldn't be hard to turn up a head cleaning cassette in San Jose... at Fry's maybe.

Joe,

Fry's carries them I'm pretty sure. The one in Palo Alto did.

Yea... Looked. Closest place (besides Fry's-- I haven't called and asked them) is Wolf Camera in Fremont. And they have one left :)

Placed on hold. And it costs. $12.99. Owch. Is that the norm?

What else-- Anything else I should remember/know for tomorrow, the big day?

Cheers.

Download the Blue Barn Pictures free program called the XL2 Presets Manager from the sticky thread at the top of the Canon XL2 Watchdog forum here in DVinfo. Steve Duke built it and provides it to Chris Hurd to distribute through DVinfo only. Its GREAT for managing the preset capability the XL2 has and the only cost to you is to share a preset or two after you've played with it awhile.

Have fun. Start at the oldest post in the XL2 section of DVinfo and read your way forward. You'd pay for two or three high dollar books to gain the education that free trip through this forum will provide. There are some helpful pros that contribte here and that will keep you coming back.

mine seems to require fairly frequent white balancing, more so than my other cameras (GL2, FX-1). dunno if others have this issue, but mine does.

Meryem....

Tecnically you are supposed to white balance every time you shoot ;)

Yeah, that's about the right price.

Not sure what's going on with the availability of cleaning tapes. I went to B&H yesterday and they were out of cleaning tapes. They had a TDK tape for $12.95 but then the guy took it away and said "you can't buy it". Apparently, they had already sold it online.

i'm well aware of that, matthew. i'm talking about white balancing more frequently, as in every 15 minutes or so. or every time there's a minor shift in light. i don't have this experience with my other two cameras, as i said. my point was, i don't know if this is specific to my camera, or if the XL2 is more sensitive to subtle environmental changes. if it is the latter, i thought it would be worth pointing out to a new XL2 operator....

xl2
 

Hi congrats on the xl2 I have had one for the last 9 months one of the best semipro cams on the market seems all as been said just one thing from a video engineer do not over do the cleaning tape it’s not good for the heads depending on the use probably best done ones per month at the max.

malcolm

Thanks guys.

I have opened the camera, assembled it (there was no guide, just the manual?), and have played with it a bit.

1) Before I record my first tape, which I'll probably record as a throw-away, can you let me know how long I need to use the head cleaner? 5-6 seconds? (The Ritz Camera person told me to use the whole tape and that didn't sound right...)

2) My XL-2, in a completely quiet room, with no tape inside, makes a weird sound. Like repetitive scratching noises, humming, most like the ticking of a clock, but way out of order/sync/rhythm. Sort of like this grinding noise-- Is that normal or is something really wrong?

3) The LCD flickers a bit. Normal?

That is all for now. Thanks. Hopefully all is good.

Cheers. and thanks again!

I respectfully submit that your Ritz Camera person is a total freakin' idiot. 10 secs is generally regarded as a norm that I read from some manufacturers - seasoned users tend to say roughly 5 or 6 seconds should do the trick without too much wear on the heads.

Does the XL2 only make the sound when starting up or is it continous while in operation? There is noise in the lens system when it is powering up as inner works must re-set and range themselves....this causes a little noise. You might also note a small amount of motor noise if in auto mode and the target causes the camera to shift its exposure and settings - likewise with zoom in and out - these functions require the use of little motors in the lens that move the stabilizer and stuff around. If the noise is present even when these factors are not present, then I would probably be worried.

Regarding the flickering LCD, mine does not flicker and I have not heard of this problem from others. Is the connection well seated? It doesn't sound right to me.

-Jon

The LCD will flicker a bit, as it is an interlaced moniter. It has never been a problem for me, and I can only really see it in the black, if look too hard!

As for the noise, make sure you are not over reacting. Close the tape door (Push in the tape door, make sure it goes down, then close the door ontop of that).

Hit record and listen. You will always hear some tape noise, but not too much.

If you record video and the sound shows up on the tape, I would be worried.

Matt

Ok cool. Not too worried then...

BUT, in regards to cleaning the heads the first time. The Ritz lady also said PUT the tape in and hit RECORD... I've been reading online to just put it in and hit play.

So do you put the cleaning tape into the XL-2 in VCR mode and play it? Or do you put it in while ready to record-mode and hit the red record button?

Thanks.

Hi Joe. Just put it in and play the tape for 5-10 seconds. And don't worry so much, you should be out shooting video by now!

Richard

It's raining :)

Do I put it in VCR mode or just Tv/Av Mode and play it?

VCR mode. The others are for shooting.

Richard

Very cool indeed. Thanks.

Another quick question: My room is not so dark at the moment, and i have the camera pointed at an object.

In Tv MODE, the GAIN orange bar lights up (below the LCD viewfinder)... I see a bit of noise as well in the shadows. So I pop out the GAIN switch and change it from A (Auto) to 0 (Zero)... And then the GAIN orange bar goes out and all seems well...

Question is, am I doing the right thing? I mean, when the orange bar lights up, is it telling me to FIX it and do what I did (changing the gain from A to 0?).

the orange led under the display is just lighting up to tell you your gain is on something other than the default (0). It will also do that with the shutter depending on the mode you're in since different frame rates have different ideal shutter speeds.

I accidentally locked a custom PRESET setting and now I really REALLY want to reset it so I can put something else there... The manual says it cannot be reset, and I'm like wtf...

No easy solution for this?

Someone please tell me there is a way to reset all of this... Take out both batteries perhaps?

Joe, just go into the menu and unlock it. Then you can change anything you want. Page 70 of the manual, just reselect the Protect option and then it will let you Clear it.

"...Ritz Camera person told me to use the whole tape..."

ArrgggHHH! Yee GODS! Sack that person!

"...I respectfully submit that your Ritz Camera person is a total freakin' idiot..."

And so say all of us...Quick! - Give Jonathan Jones a job as Managing Director of Ritz Cameras before it is too late...

Thanks a lot guys.

Two weekends of shooting. I think the footage looks. Well, I wouldn't know.

I can't figure out how to get the XL-2 to show up in Premiere Pro 2.0 so I could capture...

I've searched the XL-2 manual and the help file for Premiere... HOW DO YOU CAPTURE video... This is mind boggling....

I'm going to keep trying while waiting for someone to post

Cheers!

What did you already try? All you need to do is plug it into your computer, switch it to VCR mode, then in Premiere, go to file>capture. The you should be able to just hit the "tape" button and it will start capturing at the current point on the tape, so make sure it's rewound. Sorry if that sounds really basic, I know you're probably a lot more experienced than that, just trying to make sure we're on the same page and trying to figure out exactly what isn't working.

I am in VCR mode. I have rewound the tape. I go to Premiere, open a new project, custom project, CAPTURE project...

I go to File > Capture

The device is OFFLINE.

I have the firewire cord hooked up from the camera to the port in my comp... In VCR mode, the words "DV IN" come up, which seems wrong for what I need (DV OUT??)...

OK I see the tape button. BUT it is greyed out because the XL-2 isn't showing up...

what do you have device control set to? try checking that. Also, try hitting play on the camera and see if anything shows up - from what you say, everything appears to be working, it just seems there's a setting somewhere that needs to be tweaked. I'd be a lot more specific, but I don't actually have premiere at home, I only use it at work so I'm just going from memory here.

Yea I've tried that whole press play thing. Nothing.

The fact that the screen on my XL-2 says DV IN is getting to me... Is that right?

The device settings in Premiere are:
DEVICE: DV/HDV Device Control
Current device: Generic
Vid Standard: NTSC
DEVICE BRAND: Generic
DEVICE TYPE: Autodetect
CHECK Status: Offline

Preroll time: 2 seconds
Timecode offset: 0 frames

that's really weird - I've actually found Premiere to be a lot less finicky than FCP in terms of connections, does the camera work in say Windows Movie Maker? Have you tried restarting the computer with the camera plugged in? Hopefully someone with a deeper knowledge of premiere will chime in.

Windows movie maker says there is no capture device connected...

Again, I have a feeling this has to do with the DV in/out thing. Right at the firewire connector on the XL-2, it says DV IN/OUT, but there is no switch. So I plug this in and on screen the words DV IN pop up... I think that may be the problem because nothing is recognizing this camera...

Any ideas?

The firewire port can function as both an in or an out and the camera will automatically detect whether the signal is coming to it or not. Are there any other firewire devices connected to your computer? I'll check if there are any other settings I forgot to mention.

Can anyone give me a quick tutorial on how to capture video from the XL-2 in Premiere...

I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

**Update**

So I yanked out the firewire PCI card. I got pissed. Pulled it out of the PCI slot that it fit into easily and JAMMED IT INTO the one right next to it, supposedly the same, and it finally budged in. Windows started up. Drivers installed automatically, again.

BUT WAIT. Canon XL-2 installed this time too. Horrible!

Now I captured. Footage is uploading, I have another quesiton for that in regards to 24pa...

Next post in 10 minutes.