the GL2 has more pixels?
 

I was just on the Canon DV website and was confused by the specs of the GL2 and the XL1S. I thought that larger CCD's would have more pixels. But it said that the GL2 has 1/4 inch CCD's and 410,000 pixels, and the XL1S has 1/3 inch CCD's and 270,000 pixels.

Does that mean the GL2 has better image quality, or are there other factors involved?

I'd say they have very comparable video quality. I am pretty sure that the XL1s "only" puts out 480 lines also...unlike the GL2 which records like 520 lines, if i'm not mistaken. Some people would rather have the XL1s because of the interchangable lenses and the fact that it's sort of more of a shoulder camera, and some other reasons, and some would rather have the GL2 because of the smaller size, LCD screen.....etc....

Lets just say both can produce nice video.

Well I know that Canon says the XL1 will record up to 600 lines with the XL lens. I understand the differences between the camers sizes and accessories and all that, what confused me was the CCD's. I alwasy thought that larger CCD's would have more pixels, giving you more resolution. The GL2 has smaller CCD's but 130,000 more pixels, that's what I don't get.

Oh, Nah. The Panasonic DV953 with 1/6" CCD's has 1MP CCD's (3MP total). The Sony TRV950 with 1/4.7" CCD's also has 1MP CCD's....

You can have a CCD that is one-third inch in size with 250,000 pixels, and another CCD that is one-quarter inch in size with 410,000 pixels. Pixels don't come in a fixed size -- some are larger than others between different CCD's -- and the number of pixels on a CCD is *not* governed by how large that CCD is. Hope this helps,