This is BAD news for me! After reading through this thread with alarm, I immediately checked my camera and saw the black and white line everyone is talking about.

I am a multimedia developer and have just bought the XL1S specifically for full motion video used in interactive CDROM presentations. I edit the video on Premier and compress it down to an mpeg.

So the fact that you don't see the line on a TV does not apply to me...in my work you see the whole image including the overscan. Also, we have just completed a presentation in which the video was shot with an XL1 and it does not appear there.

This is just not good enough. The XL1S is an expensive piece of equipment and I expect better from Canon. I am going to take this up with them, and I sincerely hope they come up with a fix soon.

I'm really pissed off, because I balanced the purchase of this camera very carefully with the Sony PD150, and decided to go with the XL1S because of the ability to add features.... and I'm beginning to regret my decision.

Ron

If I put footage shot with the XL1s on DVD, and then watched it on a standard TV, would these underscan lines be visible (Im guessing not)?

Dan,

They wouldn't be. They would probably if those people are
watching the DVD on a beamer or projector for example. Best
thing to probably do is just "overwrite" these couple of
lines with black to be sure in any case. This shouldn't be
to hard todo. Ofcourse the whole movie needs to be
re-rendered (in my case this always happens due to color
correction etc.).

Canon should still fix this problem ofcourse.

Incidentally, why do TVs not show these underscan lines?

I have been thinking that it was so that any defects or irregularities at the edge of the picture were not visible.

You really don't want a regular TV set to underscan unless you want to see all the creeping, crawling lines and dots that broadcasters place in the horizontal bar. You'd see them along the top of your frame.

Canon has to fix the problem but I'm not certain Canon is the only company manufacturing prosumer cameras that's guilty of poor tech QC. I believe I've seen the same problem in some Sony camcorders. The problem might even vary from camera to camera.

By the way - the "problem" is only a problem when we see the full frame as in QuickTime movies and other computer based playback software.

Or picture-in-picture, compositing, effects, etc. etc. etc. Which makes the XL1S junk for a lot of what I intended to use it for.

I hope this thread does get some attention from the people at Canon. There is no telling how many potintial, undecided, buyers read this board. I can tell you from personal experience that it comes up quickly when searching for info on xl1s.

Most people coming into this at this level spend a long time before deciding on either an xl1s or a PD-150. Any reports of this problem with the PD-150? Someone mentioned earlier that they had the same problem with their VX-1000.

Chris,

Do you (or anyone else reading this) know someone at Canon tech support who'd read this thread and take note? I suspect that most of us are huge Canon supporters. I know that I spent my very first bonus check ever, around 1978, on a Canon A-1, and over the years have accumulated a lot of Canon gear. Based on the fixes that Canon applied to the EOS-D30 based on user reports of difficulties, I'd like to think that they'll do an update on the XL1S, assuming that it's possible.

It seems that this problem with the XL1S is common, if not actually on every camera. There's one last piece of evidence that'd be really useful to gather: taking the video/S-video output directly into a "real" monitor, i.e. not a TV, but a device that shows the whole display. There wasn't one at Keeble and Shuchat when I was diagnosing my camera, but I'm sure that SOMEONE on this board has one. I used to work at Grass Valley Group, and we had a lot of tasty monitors that would show you the whole picture. Of course, they have black backgrounds, but a little fiddling with contrast and brightness should show if the dreaded black line is there on the analog outputs. That might help Canon narrow down the problem.

I'd be happy to print this thread out and mail it to the right Canon person, if anyone has a pointer. Alternatively, maybe someone at Canon could just browse the thread online :-)

It's in Canon's interests to fix this ASAP; the longer they wait the more cameras are out there needing adjustment or repair.

Alex,

I just finished photography of an educational dramatic feature. I hope to post an article on my trials and tribulations shooting a dramatic feature with the XL-1 and 1s. For the entire shoot we used two hires monitors in underscan, mainly to aid focusing and to reveal any flags or booms dipping in along the edges. I can tell you the blanking problems (or errors as I rather call them since they can be adjusted by Canon) do show up in analog as well.

For what it's worth, and I alluded to this earlier, this is an old problem and it's quite common even with top of the line broadcast cameras. The difference is that with a DigiBeta or BetaSP camcorder, the blanking can be adjusted in the camera with the aid of a waveform monitor. In the case of the XL-1, or any other high end consumer camera, there is no such adjustment available to the user (for good reasons) and any adjustments must be done at the factory or authorized repair shop.

My hope is that Canon will throw in the adjustment gratis when requested as part of our annual checkup. I don't know what's involved adjusting the vertical and horizontal blanking in these cameras but I don't think it's an impossible task. I'm open to being corrected if there are issues specific to the XL-1 or digital camcorders in general that would prevent this from being done.

I have now used four cameras in the last month -- one XL-1s, two XL-1, and a Sony TRV900 -- the blanking varies from camera to camera. The XL-1s I used has wide vertical blanking (black bars on both sides of the frame); while the XL-1 has wide horizontal blanking (a black bar at the bottom of thre frame); the Sony has wide vertical but it shows up on the right side of the frame only. I'll post some frame grabs from the current production once we get it wrapped up.

Very interesting, Ozzie. The vertical black bars on both sides of the frame that you saw on an XL1S are very common in the XL1 (even on frame grabs on the Watchdog site). The horizontal black bar that you saw on the XL1 is the XL1S problem that we've been discussing. Looks like the problems aren't specific to model.

I do hope that it's a simple factory/repair shop adjustment.

>>Looks like the problems aren't specific to model. <<

And I'd venture to guess they vary from camera to camera as well. My XL-1s has no horizontal bar at all, only vertical and on both sides which is unusual.

For everyone's information, I just called Canon support and was told that I shold contact Adobe and find out a way in which the "problem" can be fixed in the authoring software!! (no kidding!).

Very nice lady tried to help me, then went and asked "someone else" and that was the reply I got. I explained that this was causing some consternation with other users, and suggested that she should let her management know that it is a serious situation which could cost them sales - she said she would.

I think what this needs is a concerted effort by all concerned to call Canon and complain about the problem. Once they see that there are a lot of unsatisfied people out there, they might think about doing something about it.

My temporary work-around when outputting to an mpeg is to oversize the rendering by 16 pixels top and sides and then crop it (during the rendering process) by 8 pixels on all four sides - effectively getting rid of the overscan.

where's Chris (Hurd)? Chris...HELP!!!!

mine too
 

I've been yapping with Alex in email for abit now but, thought I should just make sure a put in a "My XL1S has the damn lines too" post in case anyone from Canon ever looks at this thread. I've talked to the owners hotline a couple times now and have been told that the problem report has been sent to the research department to figure out and that should be hearing from them eventually. We'll see. Being able to say that I get the same problems in XpressDV, FCP3, Premiere, and Video Vegas shuts 'em up about software 'issues' fast enough. If you call them, and urge everyone to, make sure you say you have tried it on various platforms and still get the lines. It will help skip that whole software rap the tech support people like to go into.

I wonder how Soderbergh handled this problem (in Full Frontal). Perhaps Canon made sure they sent him absolutely pristine cameras.

One way we work around the problem is to blow up the frame just enough to meet specs. This is, of course, not a good solution by a long shot since it degrades the picture. Another work around that does not require blowing up is to wipe in just enough of the same frame. This can be noticeable depending on the frame.

I don't recommend either of these feeble solutions but it did get us approved by the stringent PBS tech department for a number of years. It seems tech people don't care how the picture looks as long as it "meets specs".

I was talking with a tech type who knows a lot meore than me about these matters. He thinks Canon can fix the problem by altering the programming of the chip in the camera. It seems there are computer types who have been "experimenting" with the on-board firmware of digital cameras. But this is way beyond my field of knowledge.

Don't know if this is any help, but I once had a problem with Sony that seemed to be going nowhere when talking with the lower-level staff.

So, after determining who the president of the company was, I sent a certified letter to him laying out the problem. Within days, one of the president's top customer service guys called and got the whole mess cleaned up pronto. The president also followed up with a letter.

Now THAT'S service, hoss.

You might as well "get on record" with this problem; who knows, if all you send certified letters to the upper echelon, it might work wonders. Someone needs to post a name and address so that everyone sends the certified letter to the same person.

Good luck (I don't yet own a Canon; otherwise, I'd take the lead)

This morning I talked to Jerry at the Jamesberg, NJ service center. I described the problem of the black line at the bottom of the frame, and told him that there were one hell of a lot of angry XL-1s users out there. He was well aware of the problem, and explained it to me this way.
He said that every camcorder manufacturer has to deal with these scanning defects and each chooses to do it differently. Some put thinner black bands at the top and bottom, some on the sides. Canon chose the bottom for the XL-1s. I asked him why have them at all, and mentioned that there was no black line at the bottom with my XL-1 (as had been confirmed in several posts here). Yes, he said, but you have them up both sides on the XL-1. Indeed, when I got home I pulled up an XL-1 frame and there was a 6 pixel-wide line up the left border, and a thinner one up the right.
I suppose if I can have lived with the lines up the sides for years with the XL-1, I can live with one at the bottom with the XL-1s.
By the way, calling the service center direct in Jamesburg at the non toll-free number (I believe it's 732-7000 with the appropriate area code) gets past a lot of the bullshit.

Yes but..............

Jerry didn't answer the question....WHY have them at all???

Why not just build a camera that has NO black lines - top bottom or sides??

That's what I'd like to know.

Ron

Personally I'm not botherd by black lines so much... What bothers
me is the little white (or a line that has a different brightness?)
which is also pulsating over time. That is bothering me much
more, cause this actually is very very noticable on computer
footage. A little black bar might even proof usefull in PIP effects
(to have a small black line surroung the B footage from the A
footage). And since you resample a PIP frame you might as
well crop it first (which is very easy with todays softwares).

Ofcourse if you want to play it straight on a computer you still
see it, but is that such a problem, really? As I said, I have much
more problems with my white/brightness line that pulsates.

I'm thinking of buying a xl1s and this black/white line really bothers me, because I will create movies to be projected digitally and the lines will be visible then unless i film 4:3 and crop to 16:9.
I think there's a lot of people who would like to see this problem solved. Lets hope Canon fixes this soon.

"He said that every camcorder manufacturer has to deal with these scanning defects and each chooses to do it differently. Some put thinner black bands at the top and bottom, some on the sides. Canon chose the bottom for the XL-1s. I asked him why have them at all, and mentioned that there was no black line at the bottom with my XL-1 (as had been confirmed in several posts here). Yes, he said, but you have them up both sides on the XL-1. Indeed, when I got home I pulled up an XL-1 frame and there was a 6 pixel-wide line up the left border, and a thinner one up the right."

Wow, this is quite a breakthrough. I went back and checked out some of my old XL1 footage. Indeed. There's a left margin of 7 black pixels and a right margin of 6 black pixels. I had done hundreds of picture-in-picture effects with this footage and the fault was too innocuous to be noticed. (There are also 3 rows of blue-tinted pixels at the bottom of the frame on the XL1.)

Still, I don't buy either of Canon's explanations for this problem.

First. Why must there be ANY issue with boundaries? I have a Canon ZR10 (a cheapie camera in comparison to the XL1) and I checked out some of the footage shot on that--it doesn't have any border pixel issues). So, again, why isn't this something that can be fixed altogether?

Second. If there must be border pixel issues, why can't Canon at least make them symmetric with respect to the frame? That's probably why I never noticed them on my old XL1. On my XL1S I have some black border line issues on the bottom of the frame, and on the left side of the frame.

Third. On the XL1S it's not just a matter of black lines. There are also some rows of pixels that appear brighter or bluish. This is probably the "pulsating" rows of pixels Rob Lohman refers to. I've run some tests, and I don't think their brightness characteristics actually change with time, but on a pan or a tilt movement they may appear to pulsate with respect to the rest of the frame. In any case, the artifacting going on here isn't just a matter of a few rows of black pixels. There are brighter ones and blue-er ones too.

I'm putting together a web site with some examinations of this problem on my cameras and some raw and close-up images that detail the problem. Will post back soon.

Here's another curious situation that I wonder if anyone else has experienced. I routinely leave a UV filter mounted on the front of the standard 16x IIs lens. I once mounted a polarizing filter to the UV lens so that both filters were stacked onto the lens. In the widest angle setting, I could see some vingetting of the image. This is normal. What was weird was that the vignette wasn't symmetrical around the image frame. It vignetted the top right corner, but, no other corners!! This tells me the CCD is not concentric with the optic!!! What's up with that? Is that because of the stabilization system, perhaps?

If, in fact, the lens is decentered, say from poor asssembly QA, the image will suffer from coma and astigmatism. Basically, this will degrade the image resolution, read: sharpness

Robert,

Will your pages be available for posting on the Watchdog?

The reason why a 1-chip camcorder doesn't show this problem is because there are no other chips to align. The issue seems to be directly related to the alignment of multiple layers of images generated by the three CCD's. Therefore a single-CCD camcorder won't have it. And if they *could* make it symmetrical, then they probably could have eliminated it in the first place. As for myself, I wonder if it's not related to pixel-shift.

The explanation that came out of the Jamesburg facility is something you can put in the bank; Jerry is one of the top guys there among the service techs, if not *the* top guy.

Small "defect". BIG expense.
 

I've been commenting on the causes of the black bars along the vertical sides or along the bottom of the full frame coming out of the XL-1 and XL-1s. So far my comments have been mainly academic, now the "problem" has turned into a huge financial loss for my company.

Perhaps Canon, along with other high end manufacturers of consumer MiniDV, DVPRO, and DVCAM, will claim these $4k systems were never designed to comply with the same strict professional standards as their $50k cameras. In many respects this argument is valid – smaller chips, more fragile construction, poor quality EVFs, inferior (by comparison) optics and servos. In the case of non-standard raster, the argument holds no water. This is simply a matter of poor quality control, or at best, an aspect not thought important enough to bother. If this is the case then we who use the XL-1 line and other “prosumer” camcorders, are justified in stopping the use of these cameras over an issue the manufacturer can easily correct without raising the price point of these systems. Non-standard blanking is simply not acceptable for professional use; it shouldn’t even be acceptable to any serious amateur (the target market of these systems) since it renders flawed any picture in picture effect.

The production we have been working on was shot with two XL-1 (a plain 1 and an S) and a SONY TRV900. The blanking for each camera is non standard in different ways. Our client has picked up on the “black bar” they see appearing, sometimes along the bottom of the frame (XL-1) and sometimes along either vertical side of the frame (XL-1s and TRV900). Since the two hour production is being released principally as QuickTime movies, there is no way to simply hide the wide blanking problems. We have to re-render ALL of our material with a slightly blown up frame (103%). This re-rendering is adding days of rendering to our postproduction. Days = money. We are now in the hole on an already ridiculously tight budget; all this, because no one has complained loudly nor frequently enough to the manufacturers. Their explanations, as cited earlier in this forum, are purely bogus. The quote from Canon is pure sales double-speak. I would have expected better.

I feel at a loss as to what action to take. Calling Canon to complain is mostly an exercise in frustration and futility. Writing letters to top management might be a better way to go but is not bound to yield any results unless there’s an onslaught of letters. Still, ultimately, I fear Canon will have the final word – a four thousand dollar camera is not meant for professional use. Pure BS and a cop out, but one that is hard to retort except with the only weapon we have – stop buying their cameras. I’m not proposing such harsh action because the XL-1 line has a lot to offer but this pesky little “flaw” is becoming a huge problem; for me, it has become a liability.

Calls and letters to "management" will accomplish nothing. Publicity about this problem, however, will have probably a significant impact.

As for myself, I'm forwarding the entire thread to CUSA's Director of Product Development, as soon as I get home.

Chris,

THANK YOU!!! I agree with Ken about bad publicity being the most effective and efficient way to go. Sending this thread to Canon is an excellent idea - not just because of what's in the thread but who's sending it and from where.

I, for one, would like to get a no nonsense and explicit technical explanation from the Canon engineers as to the source of the problem; from the development people as to why the problem was allowed to exist; and from the marketing department - what they plan to do about it. I know this is circular thinking but it gets everyone involved.

That's excellent news Chris - thanks for the positive action.

I think Canon has to approach this issue from this standpoint - In this changing world, media is being distributed in a new way through interactive multimedia, and of course via the web. It's not just a TV world any more!

Therefore, they cannot just hide things under the overscan, and pretend they don't matter any longer. Now, more of the world is seeing the WHOLE picture and not just a portion of it because of the new formats.

This is an evolving market, and one that will grow rapidly. Obviously a camera manufacturer who recognizes this, and provides a camera at this price level that can produce a "clean" image on all four sides will have a significant advantage.

Ron

Out of curiosity, has anyone seen this blanking problem (the expression makes the message look censored, doesn't it?) on the XL1s' closest competitor, the Sony PD150? How about the VX2000?

I just checked my GL1 (which I've had for 3 years) and noticed that it has two vertical bars, one on either side.

Great News, Chris!! Thanx for your help. Awareness of the "size" of the problem is something Canon needs to respond to positively.

Sounds Like the 'Hiss' Issue.
 

This has echos of Sony's hiss feature/problem. Hopefully Canon will resolve this with less grief than Sony generated. Besides this will do nothing but please the Sony philes.

Nathan Gifford

Good observation, Nathan. That was a bit of a food fight, wasn't it?

In general, though, this is probably a notch lower of a problem than Sony's hissing audio. Black edges outside of the normal underscan will most significantly impact those who plan to package their video for streaming applications where the full frame is displayed (like Ozzie's project). Sony's noisy audio circuits hit -everyone- using the affeced cameras.

Also, Sony shouldn't be too smug until they can show that their comparable cams don't exhibit the same problem.

those lines
 

DV resolution is 720x480 which would be 345,600 pixels but, Canon has the XL1S spec listed at 270,000 pixels (250,000 effective pixels). Now, as its interlaced do they mean that we have 270,000 pixels per half frame or per full frame ? This stuff confuses me to no end. I do notice that the Sony 1/3" 3 CCD cameras list 380,000 resolution in thier VX2000 specs. Almost all the 1/2" 3 CCD cameras list 380,000 or better. I guess what I'm wondering here is do the specs say we should be getting 720 x 480 or do they say we were never supposed to. Have the lines been seen in the Sony cameras ? I still wouldn't give up changing lenses to lose those lines at the bottom but, I am curious.

btw, the only other 3CCD cameras listing 270,000 pixels I could find are the Pansonic models that use 3 1/4" CCDs and cost about $2000 less then the XL1S. Unless Canon is just reporting specs more honestly then the other manufacturers it seems like there must have been huge resolution loss somewhere. Could movie mode and low light operation features have cost resolution ?

Another edit because it just gets stranger and stranger...

Canon lists the exact same resolution for the GL-1 which uses 3 1/4" CCD. What did canon do to make 1/3" CCDs perform as bad as 1/4" ones ?

Ken,

To answer your question I asked my friend who uses the PD150 exclusively. The answer is "no" - he's never had any such problems with the PD150. All his is work is strictly for broadcast. Although he "offlines" with FCP3, he onlines in a DigiBeta room and black bars or any frame problems have never popped up.


[editing this a few hours later]

And to add insult to injury - I just inserted the material we shot with the Sony TRV900 --- you guessed it --- NO bars anywhere.

We own three TRV900s. The oldest one which I use for my personal taping does show a bar on the vertical right side of the frame. The camera we used in the shoot we bought last year. Sony must have fixed the problem or we just lucked out.

Ozzie,
That may be the most significant bit of information to help us leverage Canon toward expedient resolution of this matter.

Ken/Ozzie....

If what Ozzie is saying is right, then there must be a "fix". As I said earlier, my VX1000 has vertical black bars up both sides of each frame. If the PD150 doesn't have any, then, I guess I can assume Sony found a way to eliminate them. (I also assume the PD150 grew out of the VX1000)

I think that there's a ray of hope that this isn't directly related to CCD size, although Pete's posting about 270,000 pixels is very interesting. Boy, this is a confusing area, isn't it?

The black bar problem exists, at least on my camera, in 16:9 mode, too. By eyeballing the Firewire output in both 4:3 and 16:9 modes, I can see that the black bar is there in both cases, although slightly less tall, maybe 1 pixel less, in 16:9. The camera appears to use all of the 720 horizontal pixels in both modes, but it's clearly not using the top or bottom of the CCD(s) in 16:9.

My reply here functions only to move the thread to the top of the list. Every Monday morning, Canon USA swings through to read the boards, and I wanted this one to be noticed. As I said earlier I am also passing the full contents of this thread along to certain people at CUSA. This has not been forgotten about.

I am starting to wonder if we are going to hear from Canon about
all of this. It is a little bit too quiet for my taste. Anyone heard
anything yet? Chris?