This is normal. We've had several lengthy discussions on this over the past couple of years, but the short story is that Canon considered this normal as it lands in the overscan area of the image. It's basically related to manner in which Canon masked the CCD's of their video cameras. On some cameras it appears at the verticals.

I don't know if the XL2 also has this attribute but I do know that we complained pretty loudly when it first became an issue. When the GL2 was introduced several months later the issue seemed to have been fixed on those cameras.

Canon XL1s
 

Hi Guys

I bought an XL1s last September but have only used it a few times. When I first powered up the camera I had green, pink & white flashing in the viewfinder. This lasted about 30seconds then a picture appeared. I thought that this may just have been a first time power up thing and did not worry about it. I have used it a few times since without fault but today when I switched it on I had the same problem but this time it lasted for about 3minutes then a picture appeared. I rolled record and took some practice footage for about 2 minutes but then the viewfinder switched to black. There was no picture and no osd so I stopped recording. I switched to vtr mode and replayed the footage which played back fine with all osd. I then switched bach to auto and hit the record button only to see the green flahing in the view finder again. The camera actually records this flashing which is handy if I need to go to Canon. Has anyone experienced anything like this before? Is it a botton or buttons that I have pushed? Or is this a major fault that I need to take to Canon. I must add that I'am not a Professional cammo but have been in the TV industry for 22 years. I bought this camera for my business with the intention of using a professional to shoot footage for me while I learn how to operate it.
Thanks for any help

Does not sound normal. Check to be sure lens and CVF are mounted /seated properly. If that has no effect, call Canon customer service and speak to their reps. Probably need to send it in for warranty repair.

Hi don

I've checked the lens and CVF several times, they seem to be mounted correctly.
Not sure how I'm going to go with the warranty as I bought this camera overseas and I found out the other day that Canon has no international warranty. I beleive they have a 90 day manufactureres warranty (whatever they mean by that) and the place were I bought the camera has a 90 day warranty but that past 30 days ago. They are on Christmas holiday at the moment so I'll have to see how I go later.

Thanks

Ken: this problem seems to have been fixed on the XL2 as well,
some people reported this (here on DVi) earlier when it came out.

xl1 - Intermittent Orange Cast
 

I was shooting some interviews a couple of days ago which went very well. The interviews were shot indoors with available light and a small 500 watt Lowell Tota light. However when I checked the tape on location I noticed that every few minutes an orange cast would appear. This would be most noticeable on faces. The orange dissappears after a few seconds. When I returned home and played them back on a Canon ZR60 which I use as a deck the same problem existed. This problem isn't one with pixels dropping, etc. which would indicate dirty heads. I recall reading that a long recording session can cause possible overheating. If this is so, what are the usual symptoms of overheating? I usually don't have any problems with my camera but on a couple of occassions towards the end of a long interview I have had crackling in the audio with a ME66 contacted with a Beachtek DXA-4C adaptor. Could these two issues be connected?

Manual or auto white balance?

Did lighting change at all during the shots?

Was camera movement or panning accoicated with the color shifts?

Did the conmposition of the scene change during the shots, especially bringing in some saturated blue-greenish materials?

Was ambient light (e.g., from windows) changing?

What shutter speeed were you using? Using a higher shutter speed can cause some slowly changing color shifts if standard flourescent lighting is present.

16x Focus/Zoom Ring Sound
 

Hi,

I just ordered the 3x wide angle lens, arrived yesterday - its great.

However, this has brought to light one problem - my 16x lens (the first one with the XL1), came with the 2nd hand XL1 that I bought a couple of months ago. Well, the lens works fine, there's nothing wrong with the image or the features.

However, the focus ring is really noisy. And it's not an electronic noise, it's just that it's not turning smoothly, so you kinda hear it rubbing whenever you turn it. The zoom ring is not too smooth either. This compared with the new 3x lens with both rings really smooth and spinning with no sound.

Is there some sort of lubricant/grease or something I can put on to make the rings turn smoothly?

Thanks,
Dennis

Remote/mobile power?
 

Hello All,

I use my XL1 at motocross tracks and the basic canon batteries require frequent changing and recharges. Can anyone suggest a could battery belt (or something along those lines) that would be in the couple hundred dollar range?

Thanks in advance.

No you can't. These components are not user servicable. I would
send the lens to Canon for a checkup!

Which Canon battery are you using? I've run hours on a the BP-945
(from mind) without a problem, or are you still using the small
battery that came with the camera? I bought a cheaper brand
(Lenmar) battery of the highest capacity and if I had two or three
of those (still under $100) I would've been able to easily shoot
for 8 hours for example.

Please do a search on the topic, it has been discussed before.

I am currently using two of the BP930s. Thanks Rob, I will check that out.

So there's no grease or like, lubricant of some kind?

Oh no... *cringes*

Dennis

Using different lenses
 

I recently shot some footage of a friend's wedding. The location of the ceremony was a very dark room and none of my footage of the ceremony itself was useable. Luckily a friend was shooting with another camera so I do have footage of ther wedding. My question is, does anybody have any experience shooting w/a lense adapter using photographic lenses(i.e. Nikon, Canon). If I shoot with a prime lense will I gather more light due to the fact that there is less glass for the light to pass through, hence a brighter picture. I'm shooting with an XL1 w/the stock lense BTW. I also had the gain boosted and the iris wide open.

Re: Using different lenses
 

The CCD block limits the max aprerture to F/1.8.

You might gain about a stop relative to the max zoom end of the standard lens if you use a EF lens adapter and a fast (f/1.8) still camera lens. But due to the CCD size relatively to the still film frame size, you will see an effective 7.2x increase in apparent focal length (based on field of view of the image).

Have you tried to increase the image brigthness gain in post? You may be able to squeeze another 6-12 dB . The image will hve plenty of noise, but is better thtn nothing,

Canon XL-1 Playback Problem
 

Hi,

I've had my XL-1 for 5 years of moderate use without any problems. Just now I find that when I play out to an NTSC monitor through the RCA outs I'm getting these thi, widely separated black lines that slowly drift from the bottom of the monitor to the top like very slow-motion "bad reception".

I've swapped out the RCA cables to no effect, and the problem occurs both when I'm playing back a tape or just playing out from FCP4 through the camera as a deck.

Has anyone experienced this before? I'm trying to identify what I might be facing.

Thanks!

BG

xl to c-mount adapter
 

I could have sworn that I found a small website with this adapter. For the life of me, I cannot remember where I saw it.

If anyone knows, let me know.


Stephen

Stephen, are you taking about this site?

http://www.xl1solutions.com/Adaptor%20Products.htm

I think they hawked a C-mount adaptor a while back, but I don't find it on their site now.

JS

hm...
could be.

I'm going to drop them a line and see if they can give me any info.

Thanks!

stephen

A couple of quick questions. Is the camera close to the monitor or a speaker? Have you tried svhs out? Is the camera powered by batteries or ac adapter?( try battery)
smitty

Field mixer (Shure FP-31) and dual recording
 

Hi guys,
after having learned from this forum for weeks now (it's been amazing, thanks) without posting any questions myself, I thought I'd give it a go. So here's my first one and I hope it is not too vague.

i just bought a second-hand field mixer (shure fp31) to use with my canon xl1s on my first documentary shoot (in 3 weeks) . I will have a sound person with a boom and a shotgun mic, who will feed (and monitor) the signal into the mixer. However, having read that the onboard audio capabilities of the Xl1s may be inferior to other recording media (e.g. dat) I was wondering whether it would make sense to run two outputs from the mixer (same signal): one to my camera (MA-200) and one to a hardisk recorder (uncompressed recording, i.e. wav). The hard disk would be attached to the sound guy.
Now, is this overkill? the hard disk I intend to use takes a stereo signal via a small 3.5mm jack. I have several output alternatives from the FP-31: 2 XLR, one small 3.5mm tape out, and a large phone (6.3mm) jack.

Any thoughts and opinions welcome

Cheers from down under

PS if somebody has any experience with the FP-31, I would appreciate any advice

Extra audio mixer
 

A thought for some shoots it would work great, but we are a two person department covering the entire state of California, (or Kal'Eforn'Ya as our gov likes to say it). We rarely have the luxury of both of us on the same shoot, and still do not have any student or senior volunteers for our unit. For the application I just had, a 55 minute speach, I could go 16bit, with the mixer and be in good shape, but for things like following a hunter and guide thru the woods, this would make it rather sporty at best.

I just spent about 9 days low crawling with various folks thru the Grizzly Island Wildlife area, Scouting, Filming, and generally getting up to my ears in mud, a mixer would have to be really small maybe a beachtek or something. Thanks for the post, it starts me thinking anyway..... Of course then I give up the ability to control my mix in post....... Still, it would be better if adobe just wrote their software correctly.

Thanks,

Matt

Wow! Agreed. A location such as that would make a second audio unit rather impractical.

For the record, I hear your pain. I have laboured over 2 camera shoots in the edit bay when the audio drifts by about 2 seconds on the hour between the 2 sources.

Adding a 3rd cam is even more fun....

But that's boring sh*t ... your locations sound like a blast...

XL1s and Airport Security
 

Hi, just have a (somewhat strange) query.

I travelling abroad and am taking my Canon XL1s with me.

Can I be sure that a device such an airport X-Ray machine won't damage my XL1s in any way (when put through as hand luggage)?

Does anybody have any knowledge on the topic?

May sound like a bizzare question but you can never be so sure!

I don't want to send it to it's death!

Thanks guys!

It won't damage the camera.

Use the forum Search function to turn up other threads on this topic; as I recall this subject has been previously discussed here in some detail.

Thanks Chris, I will search!

XL-1 inputs?
 

Hi,

I'm trying to transfer footage from a TV back onto miniDV of the XL-1.
For some reason, each time I press 'pause' and 'record' simultaneously
in the VCR mode it gives me the error message 'DV IN' in the bottom right hand corner of the viewfinder.

Is it because the XL-1 doesn't have a s-video input(s) in the first place?

Thanks a lot.

Olivier

Welcome aboard DVInfo.net Olivier!

The XL1 cannot record analog video, that is a feature of the XL1S.
DV-IN is flasing because it isn't detecting a stream coming in from
the firewire (DV IN) connection (which is the only thing that model
understands). Sorry.

32k audio from XL1s, Final Cut Express, and iDVD
 

I edit on both Final Cut Express and iMovie. I'm now working with a Canon XL1s and want to utilize its four channel audio capability. That means the camera will sample the audio at 32k. I've read that iDVD must have 48k audio or it will hang up in stage 3 of encoding.
I currently export my finished video projects as self-contained Final Cut Movies with audio sampling set at 48k. It takes more memory to do this, but I have yet to have a stage 3 hangup.
The question then, is this the only way to insure a successful dvd burn? Can audio be altered in FCE? I've not been able to find any command that does this.

The FCP preset for your sequence specifies the audio format. Chances are you are using the NTSC-DV preset. That specifies 48KHz 16 bit audio. When you put a clip from your XL1S on the timeline, FCE will show that the audio needs rendering. When you render, it's converting it to 48KHz 16 bit. Basically, it's handled for you.

Thanks. I was hoping that was the case, but couldn't find an answer.

Troubleshooting the XL1s loading mechanism
 

Is it time to send my XL1s to Canon for maintenance?

Today my XL1s ate a tape in rewind.
So, I put in a brand new tape. fast forward to end, then rewind. EJECT TAPE warning at almost the same place...approx 12 min from beginning of tape.
Decided to use a tape head cleaner. Would not load. Tried another brand new tape. It would not load. It appeared the loading mechanism was encountering a block.
Ejected tape, and got little coiled spring in my lap. Compared loading mechanism to that of my GL1 and figured out where the little spring came from. Took about an hour to get that little bugger back where it belongs.
Ran the loading mechanism without a tape a few times. After a few hiccups the gears, sliders and other things actually seemed to go where they looked like they belonged.
Took another brand new tape and tried to load it. I not only loaded, but a compete fast forward and rewind encountered no problems.

Repeated the process several times. No glitches.

Should I send to Canon or no?

First of all, congratulations on that successful operation.

I've heard of several "self-made surgeons" who have tried the same thing as you, but lost their patient on the operating table.

Just to be on the safe said, I think you should send it in for service, which is something you should be doing once a year anyway. Don't mention this incident. They'll check the tape transport mechanism regardless. Good luck, although it sounds like you've already had plenty of good luck,

Shopping in Tokyo
 

I appreciate any specific advice on Shops in Tokyo where I could shop for XL-1S accesoires over the weekend. I would be interested in an EF adapter XL and/or the 1.6X extender.

Thanks,

Guus Verheijen

Hi there,
Very impressed by all the set ups; I'm looking for some advice regarding an audio set up. I'm looking to buy a wireless kit, like the sennheiser G2 100 series to use along with my regular on board mic. What's the easiest set up? I saw that Ed had ev100 receiver connected to the ma 200, does the ma200 connect to the camera via audio2 rca jacks and thus allow him to use his standard mic as audio 1?
I'd appreciate the info prior to shelling out on anything
Thanks

Hello Guus and welcome aboard!

One thing we always warn people about when buying abroad is
warranty (garantie). What happens if the piece is defective or
something breaks down when using? I'm not sure Canon Holland
will give you any warranty on items purchased abroad for example.

And sending it to and from Tokyo might not be such a good thing
either. Perhaps it is better to look in Germany? It is usually (much)
cheaper there and far easier for warranty in your case.

Welcome aboard DVInfo.net Emmet! Why not download the MA200
manual from www.canondv.com and look through it?

Ken,
I found an article of yours about Canon XL lens.
Would you happen to know the back focal length of any of the lens for XL1/2 ?
Flange distance to CCD.
Thanks a lot,

Sorry, Dan, no I don't know that. The 16x Manual Auto lens is the only production lens for the XL series that has a flange back adjustment.

why overly bright in the bright parts of picture
 

I mostly use the auto recording and don't adjust much of any buttons. Have I missed anything?
Problem is that white light and white objects look extremely white and shining on TV. It's not so obvious on computer screen. I think it's not the problem with the camera, since I've seen similar problem with other people's video.
Thank you