DV signal or transport problem

[Mo Zee]

exporting from a raptor rt through firewire to the xl-1, there are occasional flickers- blue screen with no audio. tried to export to a sony D8 and everything was fine. tried to dub thru firewire from the D8 to the xl-1, and the problem is still there. i also experienced the tape- eating problem twice. i consider this a suspect if the analog out signal is actually being played from the tape, and not a patch from a D/A converter of the original DV signal.

I am having the same exact problem. I have a XL1, I use Premiere, my system consists of a dual PIII 1 gig-tyan board-2 40 gig maxtor 7200 rpm-western digital firewre card. I have tried everything and I mean everything, different OS's (98 SE, Win 2k), Different Firewire cards (Western Digital, Pinnacle), Different Software (Premiere, Avid ExpressDV2). I have spent a lot of money and time trying to fix this issue. I'm not sure what to do at this point. If anyone has a clue let me know please!

I'm having similar problems rendering back to my XL1 from Studio 7. Every so often the viewfinder turns blue for a split second. When I view the tape afterward sometimes there is no problem other times the audio gets slowly slipped out of sync.

On the Pinnacle discussion board there are a lot of people having this same problem.

Is your computer home built or factory? Mine is home built, but it is a haas. The only thing I can come up with is that I am using regular maxtor eide 7200rpm hard drives. I was told that they should be ok. I'm going to give canon another call. I'll post what they have to say. The big problem is they refuse to support other peoples equipment (Idon't really blame them but they could at least offer suggestion).

Moo Zee is your computer home built or factory?

I just got off the phone with canon and they want me to send it in to be looked at. Do you all suggest I do it. I don't really want to considering so many others are having this issue (makes me think it's not my particular camera that's broken). Plus I have heard they aren't exactly lighting fast about turnarounds.

[Mo Zee]

my PC is home built- premiere 6, win 98, pIII 800, 512ram, and whether or not IDE or SCSI, i still get the blue drop-outs. i had my camera checked, and, as i expected, canon said it was fine. i tried exportiing with one of the cameras from one company i produce for, and there weren't any problems, except it simply stopped in the middle of dubbing once without eating the tape. again, what i find weird is if it is dubbing from cam to cam, everything is fine. if you guys find a solution, please post it. as of now, i bought the cheapest cam i could buy to use as a deck.

You can download the latest direct x 8.1 codec at

www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/ downloads/default.asp

Hope this helps.

I also experience some ieee1394 problems before but when I installed the direct x upgrade I can now export and import videoclips from my camcorder to the pc and back again from the pc to the camcorder.

I'll be honest with ya folks I think this is a Canon problem. I hooked up a couple of different cams and my XL1 is the only one that has this issue. I'm gonna hound Canon and see if I can get some answers.

I'm starting to think it is a Canon problem as well, even though I don't know why it would suddenly start popping up on everyone's cameras.

When this problem started, other than being perplexed, I cleaned the heads on my XL1 and re-rendered to the camera. The problem went away. For awhile. The problem has come back a few times, but even though the viewfinder flashes to blue several times, I can't find anything wrong with the final tape. It used to be that the video was fine but that the audio would slip slowly out of sync each time the screen flashed.

There is one other thing that may play a part, but I don't know why. Let's say I have a project captured and edited on my PC, and ready to render back to the camera. For whatever reason I need the disk space temporarily so I move everything through my LAN to another PC, and delete it from the original drive.

I do whatever other work was needing the disk space and then clear it off. Then I defrag the original drive and copy everything back to its original place.

Now if I start to render out to the camera the blue screen problem comes up much more often and affects the audio sync much more seriously.

There are a couple of things that it may be. Maybe when the original video is captured it is written to disk in a slightly different manner than Windows usually uses to copy files. The software we are using might write to disk using much lower level code. Other coders out there will understand what I am talking about.

Then when we copy the work back and forth the lower level information is not valid anymore and the software must rely on Windows to manage the file I/O. This could slow down data transfer and cause our XL1's to have a data underflow causing the blue screens.

FYI I am running Windows 2000 on a 1,000 Mhz P-III with 512 Mb RAM and 2 x 40 Gb 7200 RPM drives. I have 2 other 40 Gb drives on another PC that I use to dump the files to temporarily.

Does this idea make sense to anyone else?

I'm not totally sure that the data rate coming out of the 1394 card has anything to do with the file format. I could be wrong but the way I understand it the 1394 card is nithing more than a NIC and the camera syncs to it's speed. I still think that it has to do with the 1394 interface on the cam. Like I said I just tried 3 other cams and they all worked great on a variety of video. The XL1 was the only one that faultered.

StormFront

The thing that is really strange is that it seemed to start up in the last few weeks for me. Before that I wasn't having any problems.

I wonder if anyone with the XL1-S is having the same problems. In a way I hope they are so that Canon will have to address the problem rather than lose sales. Us XL-1 owners can't expect any help from Canon since we are "outdated."

Dear Robert Hedges,

Thank you for your inquiry. We regret any difficulties the connection to
the computer may have caused.

The digital camcorder is equipped with a DV IN/OUT terminal on its body
that conforms to IEEE 1394, also referred to as Firewire. This terminal
provides digital connectivity for high speed transfer of video, stills
and audio from the digital camcorder to a DV ready computer. The
firewire cable is a separate accessory that you could use. Regrettably
we do not have any drivers for the connection or configuration of the
software or the connecting device. You will have to contact the software
vendor and the firewire provider on driver configuration issues. Our
camcorders captures images at 29.97 fps which is the NTSC standard. Some
softwares captures at 30fps which can result in synchronization issues.
Unfortunately this feature cannot be changed on the camcorder and it is
not a flaw. There are no firmware updates available.

Thank you for your interest in Canon. We look forward to assisting you
in the future.

Sincerely,

Ivy
Product Support Representative






Original Message Follows:
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INQUIRY=I get a blue flash on the camera when trying to record
video from my computer. I understand that the blue screen
means the camera has lost the signal from the computer. I
have tried 3 other cameras a JVC, a Canon, a Sony. My XL1
is the only one that does this.
Is this a problem that Canon is aware of? I have contacted
tech support by phone and they said that this is an unknown
issue. I have visited several internet message boards and
there are many people having this same issue. The XL1 is a
great camera (not cheap either) and I would love to get
full use from it. If you could please help me I would
appreciate it.

[Mo Zee]

so does this mean that the blue screen is a dropped frame? If it is then why doesn't it occur at fixed intervals, i would guess every 9 seconds. don't cards capture at 29.97 or at least 30 drop-frame?
I'm just airing my disappointment.