XL1 Articles in Print

As of January 2000, this page is no longer updated.

Matthew Payne's review in the April issue of AVVMP consists mostly of an obligatory rundown of features and the standard claim that the XL1 is a better camera than the Sony VX1000. His field test was a night shoot of a soccer game and he states that he was able to synchronize a shot of a computer monitor using the variable shutter speeds for flicker-free recording. Not surprisingly, Payne finds the XL1's image quality comparable to entry-level Beta SP.

DV Magazine's XL1 review, written by Vernon Kato and Jim Feeley in the May '98 issue, is interesting because it mentions that the XL1 has "a tough time with sky shots and low-angle shots that incorporate sky backgrounds." That's not very specific about what was wrong, but I wonder if they're referring to the contouring problem. Also, color bars are listed as a feature, which indicates they were probably testing a pre-production prototype.

The editors of RES turned to the Watchdog once again for an XL1 article in their NAB issue. Although a key paragraph was sliced, the piece walks the uninitiated through the color bars trick and includes some useful timecode information (read the uncut version elsewhere on this website). Joe Nickell's feature on the Emergency Broadcast Network is what really makes this issue a keeper.

Jon Leland's XL1 article is a well-rounded tour of the camcorder. Included is a sidebar about "how the internet helped fix the XL1" and the XL1 Watchdog website gets more than just a passing mention, so I'm blushing once again. Be sure to check out the story on the shoot in Tibet for the making of Windhorse.

The April '98 issue of Camcorder & Computer Video's article by Tony Gomez on page 86 is basically a re-hash of the same one he wrote back in February (see below) with a small sidebar stating "bug fixed." Too bad he's not referring to the posterization bug! Take a look at page 18 of this issue and you'll see the problem I have with C&CV in general. At the top is a nice photograph of the good ol' Sony VX3 Hi-8mm handycam. The caption calls it a digital "DCR1000." Highly typical of this nationwide magazine.

The new quarterly RES, the magazine of digital filmmaking, asked me to write a short review of the XL1. It's printed in the Winter '98 issue. The review is short, only a few hundred words, but the Watchdog feels sheepishly proud of himself. The real gem of this issue, however, is D.W. Leitner's excellent article, "Turning Tape into Film." The Watchdog highly reccomends this stylish publication.

The February/March '98 issue of Video Magazine has a rather informative four-page article that goes into some detail about the XL1's features. There's an interesting chart that gives some specific Picture Signal/Noise ratio measurements as well. This is the best printed article on the XL1 the Watchdog has seen to date.

The February '98 issue of Camcorder & Computer Video's article by Tony Gomez on page 32, "Canon's XL1 - Is it the ultimate camcorder?" describes the various features of the camera. It's a fairly thorough but non-technical article, but I have a major complaint about the magazine in general. While the cover photo is really nice, the photos inside the magazine are horrible. My Elite Video mail order catalog's product photos blow away the ones in this nationally known magazine.

The March '98 Videomaker puts the XL1 on the cover, but only briefly examines the camcorder in a short two-page article by Joe McCleskey in the Benchmarks section. This magazine is targeted at video neophytes, which is okay; but I wish their writing style was a little more technical. Words like "hidey-hole," for instance, and a tendency to capitalize camera functions like "Zoom" and "Record" make me roll my eyes sometimes. But I did get to meet and talk to publisher Matt York at COMDEX '96, though, and that was cool.

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Thrown together by Chris Hurd