I work for a university athletic dept, and have the XL1 to shoot game footage during basketball seaon for commercials, highlight tapes, etc. I have the MA-100 and I want to use that to record the play-by-play voices of our radio announcers. I'm assuming that the setup they have has an extra XLR output that I could plug a transmitter into, and then plug the receiver into the MA-100 and have that strapped on the XL1.

First of all, has anyone had experience with this? And secondly, what are the best systems out there? We have wireless microphones already installed in the basketball arena for PA purposes, so I would want something that won't interfere with that system. And my budget would be around $200-300.

Also, a system with maybe 2 inputs, because I'd love to be able to use a good lavalier mic and pin it on our head coach, to get game audio from him. So a system that could handle two wireless inputs, or maybe 2 systems where the receivers would both be small enough to simultaneously strap on to the XL1.

Can anyone suggest a good system to buy, or how I could best go about achieving this? Thanks in advance!

Your budget makes this a challange. Look into the Azden VHF models, perhaps the WDR-pro receiver (two frequencies, diversity) and a corresponding transmitter. It should be in your budget range for on chaannel of sound. You would need a similar system on a differnt frequency for the second channel.

If you rcamera is in fixed location you may be able to run a wire from the announce system to the camcorder. That woudl be a lot cheaper and probably more reliable.

You may not want a wireless mic on the coach for fear moms would hear what he is saying to/about their darlings <g>.

The camera will not be stationary, I usually shoot from underneath the basket, up in the crowd, etc. I have a minidisc recorder which I guess I could hook up to the announcer, but it makes it much more difficult to keep the audio in line with the video, I'd have to go trhough and figure out what part of the audio commentary goes with what part of the video, and I'd rather just have that on camera so it is imported onto my computer along with the video.

And with the coach, I definitely would edit it a bit, I sure don't want to piss anyone off. :)

I have a 2 yr. old XL1. I shot footage for a client this week and a lot of it (not all) came back all broken up (pixilated) and the frame wasn't holding at times when played out of the cam.
Playing out of another player deck was even worse.
I was recording in SP mode and used brand new tapes.
Any help would be appreciated. If need be, can anyone tell me the process for getting it repaired in Jamesburg. I live close by.
thanks

When was the last time you took your camera in for servicing? I think if it was a dirty head, the tape should be okay on playback on another deck. Two weeks ago the playback out of my XL-1 (2 years old) looked very bad like yours. On another deck it was okay, when I took it in they said the playback head was bad, luckily the recording head was okay so whatever I shot was okay. they changed the whole assembly for about $300.

With your camera it sounds like the recording and playback heads are bad. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but won't a tape cleaner only clean the playback head? Is there a way to clean the recording head? Try a tape cleaner, I don't think it will help much, you will probably have to send it in for servicing. With my camera it seems that after about every 8 months, I need to take it in for something. little things mostly, but the last time it was a big problem. Of course it had to happen during a big job and a week before I was going out of town and needed my camera, luckily they fixed the problem in 3 working days. It also helped the service center is one subway stop from my place.

Give the service center a call and tell them about your camera, they can tell you the best way to send/bring it in

A cleaning tape will clean (to the best of its abilities) both the record and playback heads. Do not excede the cleaning times recommended by the Mfg. They also don't clean the tape path very well, so a professional cleaning is recommended every so often.

Jeff

If it says it's safe for optical surfaces etc. it's safe for your lenses. You may not need to use it unless you have a really greasy smudge or smear. Small marks can be removed with the lens pen. For larger smears, moisten the filter by breathing on it, use the micro fiber cloth and rub with some force and keep breathing on the filter. Being too gentle at this point only moves the smear around. It is at this point most people give up. The trick is to use moderate force, your not going to scratch the filter.

Jeff

Could anyone help me out with setting the image settings on the XL1S menu???

I changed the image settings such as sharpness, color phase, color gain and setup, I changed the settings until I got the picture I was after, then I clicked return... then the image suddenly changed back to normal, I recorded a short segment and the image settings for the footage returned to normal.

I also tried pressing the menu button to exit as stated in the user manual, but the same thing happened, the imaged changed back to normal. I can tell, because I changed the setup to all the way left and sharpness all the way right. as soon as I exit or click return with the iris button, the image changes back to normal.

I have tried changing image setting in custom, Auto or green box.

I also want to shoot some black and white footage but was unable to make the color gain stay at the far left of the scale and record B+W. Please reply if you know what I am doing wrong.

Thanks....

Daniel

I don't have the XL1S manual with me at the moment (you can download it from www.canondv.com) and I'm at a tradeshow right now, but here goes.

Once you configure an image in the custom preset menu, the way you activate it is with the custom preset keys (the buttons under the red sliding door around the power dial). That's how you turn them on.

For black and white, knock the color gain all the way down and save it as a custom preset. Then access it with the custom preset buttons on the camera.

Page 69 of the manual explains how to set them up; page 70 explains how to recall them. Hope this helps,

Recently had a new head assembly installed under warranty on a brand new XL1s, but now I noticed that DV tapes recorded in my Sony DSR40 will not play audio when played in the XL1s. No audio on RCA outputs, no signal in headphones, no activity on audio LCDs. Is this another head alignment, or is Sony DSR deck audio incompatable with XL1s audio?
Video plays fine, and both audio and video play fine when recorded on XL1s and played back on either XL1s and Sony deck.

My guess would be difference in head alignment. In my experience with head misalignments, the audio is the first to go soon to be followed by video glitches.

I was looking at getting a PAL model XL1s since it transfers easier to film. The only thing is it may be a while before I output to film and will most likely be outputting to DVD for the time being. So, the question is how wise would it be to buy a PAL camera and just convert from PAL to NTSC in software? I would think that since motion pictures are 24fps and are converted to NTSC it should be quite similar shouldn't it? Basically I just want to buy one camera that will let me comfortably output to both film and NTSC DVD and so far from what I've read it seems PAL may be a wiser choice. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.


Revolver1010.

Anyone considering buying filters for the XL1(s) to enhance/alter the image should read this article first. It was written by cinematographer Barry Braverman. Interesting reading!

http://www.lafcpug.org/curseofdigital_feature.html

Excellent article- thanks for posting it.

I was reading thru the ZGC products and came across the
Anamorphic Attachment.

They say,
"ZGC Tech Desk: We tried the new OpTex adapter ring that is specially made to allow the OpTex Anamorphic lens to be used with the Canon 16x auto lens. As the clear aperture of the adapter is smaller than the lens’, the edge of the adapter will cut in the frame when the zoom is set at a focal length wider than 10mm. The image stays sharp when the zoom is operated in the range below 25mm with the aperture set at F1.8. If the iris is closed down, the range is extended: at f5.6 the image is still sharp when the zoom is at 30mm. "

Is this a real problem for any Anamorphic lens users? Has this
rescricted you in any way? How did you overcome this?

There is a slight vignetting on the Optex. But it's way out of the TV safe area. AND the Optex attachment adds 33% wide to you original lens wich is a great bonus. You are however limited in the tele range. The last third of the zoom is lost in vertical smear...

Hi all,

I am just wondering if anyone here has any experience with generating CG animations and compositing them over field-mode (i.e. interlaced) DV footage from a PAL XL1.
We have some live footage that needs, erm, augmenting, and I now am wondering whether to render the fields with odd fields first or even fields first - Premiere tells me PAL DV is even (lower) fields first, but Avid Xpress DV 3.5 tells me it's odd (upper) field first. Or should we save some time and render progressive anyway?

Anyone have an answer to this particular q?

Many thanks,

Kailee.

Go to DV.com. They have had several articals on CG, fields, and the like. I'm working on the same type of project, only real actors in a CG world. I hope your programs work quicker than my Infini-D!
Best wishes,
Keith

DV is lower field first (100% sure for PAL). Now the question is
whether this is even or odd.... That I do not know. A simple test
might be in order? You can also do progressive I think, which
should lower render times as well. Just do a 30 second test
or something first to make sure everything looks okay. Please
let us know how your results go.

Strongly recommend you go with NTSC for now. Unless you feel like rendering everything from PAL to NTSC by software, which is going to cramp your lifestyle a bit. You can always sell your camera later and buy a PAL unit when you're ready to shoot that movie. Hope this helps,

Hello. I had never done this before and was a bit apprehensive of what the image would look like. But the XL's, with their 525 lines, did very well providing a 20'x25' IMAG LCD screen with a clean signal through 200 ft of cable. Both myself and the screen provider were pleasantly surprised. If possible though, try to feed it with a high quality Y/C component signal and MANUALLY white balance the camera(s). This was achieved by splitting the Y/C carriers with a Y/C to 2-BNC y-adapter through two separate true 75 ohm BNC cables and rejoining them at the truck with another y-adapter maintaining the cleanest signal possible, short of Firewire, from the XL. I didn't try it with a single composite BNC return but it may very well have worked. So anyone with a possible job with an XL for IMAG, no problem.

Is there a sound/editing guru amongst us?

Here is the situation: I am editing together some sound and video. The sounds are recorded at various levels, some public domain, and some orginally recorded at the site. Some are also yet to be recorded, which is what I am going to do.

My question(s) is/are, at what level should one record at? I want to level the audio before I start manipulating it to taste (editing).

Is this a taste question? Record at whatever level...

Anyways, I hope I phrased my dilemma correctly.

This is new!

Thanks in advance for your help.

Cheers!

Derrick

I do not claim to be a guru, but I will offer a couple thoughts. In part it depends on what you plan to do with the edited video, and what kind of material you have (rock music, classical, voice, etc.)

A general guide is to set the average record level to about -12 dB on the XL1, and to avoid clipping on transients (level reaching 0 dB). With wide dynamic range material you may want to use a lower average level to keep some headroom for transients.

However, if you are matching existing material you may want to try match you new recording those average levels (if they sound OK to you). Be aware that audio form most consumer camcorders will be crap, with tons of AGC-induced compression to the point of having no dynamic range. Essentially useless for quality sound.

Don,

Thanks for the information. I'm a neophyte to recording sounds. I will be recording some dialogue too, and your post is pointing me towards someone that has their own equipment.

I am trying to do everything on my short dv, so I can learn and know. However, I do want it to sound superb! Some of the recording I can do myself. The dialogue may be best done by someone who knows and can impart their knowledge to me on the fly. Obstacles, you gotta hate/love and overcome them!

Adobe Premiere and Avid XPress have some sound level minipulators that I can adjust.

Thanks for taking time to provide me with some valuable feedback.

I'll be back...

Cheers!

Derrick

I'd like to rent something like the mini35 or similar adapter for the XL1-s plus a prime lens set. Anyone know of any packages in the LA area? Haven't found anyone local with the adapter for rent yet. Thanks.

I believe Birns & Sawyer rent it. Give them a try http://www.birnsandsawyer.com/index.asp if not they may know who does.

Jeff

Hi all,
I am new to this, and was wondring if there was a battery belt pack that used batteries w/no memeory effect?

Thanks

Hi,

There seemed to be no shortage of manufacturers making belts in this country when I was shopping for a belt a few months ago, so no doubt you'll find a choice of sources in your part of the world.

Prices vary widely, depending on the type of battery. I went for NiCd for a budget solution on the grounds that today's NiCds are far less affected by memory effect than they used to be. You just need a complete discharge/charge cycle now and again.

The question of whether to store your batteries fully or partly charged has been discussed here before, without a conclusion being reached. :)

Al

LiIon would be my choice. Try to find a wholesaler, they may sell to you. Sometimes you can save $60.00 on a 3 hr. batt. The last one I bought was a Lenmar 5550mAh for $59.99( for my XL-1). Very happy with it.

Keep looking

Has any one out there had experience with the SP7 shoulder brace. I do mostly outdoor shooting and I use the 1.6X extender quite a bit to bring me in closer on wildlife subjects. A recent trip to the rocky mountain high country reminded me of how windy it can get on top of a mountain. The body of the XL1s acts like a sail in wind gusts making steady video impossible (especially with the extender on full zoom). Will the SP7 help? Is it heavy? How much can I expect to pay?

IF YOUR LOOKING FOR A SITE WITH TONS OF FREE SOUND EFFECTS GO TO:

WWW.FINDSOUNDS.COM/TYPES.HTML

THEY HAVE AUFF, AU, AND WAVE

BRUCE

Hello friend. I have that shoulder brace. It cost me 465 courtesy of ZGC. I doesn't way much itself, but you'll definitely know it's there when you get it on your shoulder. I myself am a rather small person, so it doesn't hug my shoulder like I thought it would. I'm getting used to it, but try to try one out before getting it.

As far as steadiness goes, it should help you there too.

I just received my new XL1s a few days ago along with a few new JVC mini-DV tapes. So I threw in one of the tapes and began shooting a few random things around the house. I rewinded the tape and watched the video in my viewfinder and was in awe of its quality. Today I had some more free time after work to do some more shooting and found a slight glitch in the tape when I played it back in either my XL1s or my DV deck. Its a small 2 second flicker that looks similar to a digital satellite system breaking up due to poor signal strength. I put in a different tape and began shooting and have yet to have the problem occur again. Should I be worried about this or could it just be that the tape had a bad spot?

Any suggestions would be helpful, since I want to make sure for the money I'm paying that my XL1s is working properly.

Thanks ^_^

I'm afraid that this is not uncommon. On a 63 min tape, I typically get one or two of those. The camera has been back to Canon twice, and it's better, but not cured. The last time, they sold me a new drum. I've been using strictly the Panasonic Master tape (white cassette), which is among the best stuff you can buy, so it's not the tape. It's probably the nature of DV to get a few of these, but I'd like to see less. These drops have screwed up more than a few shots.

Chris,
I was about to post a question, then realized that I had seen the subject adressed before. But when? Didn't you mention something about an archive?

Steve Siegel
Miami, FL

If you look up at the upper right hand corner, you will notice the second button from the right is "search." Click this and you will be all set in digging through the archives.

Hope this helps.

Hello everyone,

I am new to this list and new to film making. I have been keen photographer for years and started to be interested in video making. I belive most rules of still photography apply to video, but have one specific question. With my still camera, I used to set expousre manually - I am taking the ambient light measurement with a hand-held light meter. With this meter you first set an ISO film speed you use, in order to take readouts. How is it with digital video tape? How do you take measurements of ambient light to set the aperture and shutter speed manually on your camcorder? Is there some equivalent to ISO film speed in relation to DV?

Best regards,
Maciej

Hi,

Your question has been answered here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3294

The link Nathan refers to is very good and includes a complete discussion of this topic.

Jeff

I would like to know if anyone else knows why Canon doesn't make the manual XL lenses' barrels white like the standard lenses. They make the other pro still lenses with the white barrel. Why is this? My theory is that they have modified these black lenses from another line to fit the XL camera systems to keep costs down from having to develop a whole new manual lens. I like everything to MATCH! Whadaya think?

Maybe...
Another theory is that since all the other pro lenses out there are black, Canon made this one black to match.

Strange phenomenon today.

While shooting a locked-off shot with a city street in the background, I had a problem today where bright colored cars whizzing by would temporarily cause the image to "flash", by which I mean a lifting of the black level overall. I would refer to it as a flare, except that it was uniform across the image. There was a circular polarizer in use on the 14x manual lens, and the camera was in manual mode.

I am suspecting the filter, but just having a bright object in frame (and the cars were under 100 IRE, and not reflecting sunlight at the lens since it was overcast) and getting this sort of result is discouraging. It was a borrowed filter, and since I have always used straight pola's I am wondering if this is a side effect of the circular pola.

Has anyone experienced anything like this?

This is just a guess, but certain types of materials (unpainted metal) produce reflections that can not be reduced by either linear or circular polarizers. Metal wheels, perhaps metallic paint etc. would produce such a light. This would cause the polarizer to reduce the reflections of some light and to have no affect on the other reflected light. Combine this with the motion of the cars and I would think that it could cause a flashing or strobing effect.

Jeff

I'm in the process of buying a canon xl1s.

I'll need to buy a tripod, could anybody give me any advice.

It would be great if the head could be removed so that it could be put on a hi hat or other mounts depending on the situation.

The camera will mainly be used for documentry work.

My buget is around £800 - £1200.

Thank you.

I'm not exactly sure about exchange rates but I can highly recommend the Vinten http://www.vinten.com/ tripods and they're made in England. It's what I'm presently using and I'm very pleased with it. The other brand to look at is Sachtler http://www.sachtler.com/default2.asp The Sachtler DV-6 might be in your range. Others to look at in your range are Miller, O'Connor and Manfroto/Bogen.

Jeff

I am heavy into editing and post production on a DV feature and I need some advice from the audio gurus on the site.

I recorded all of the dialogue for the movie on my Sennheiser Shotgun microphone. It did a beautiful job, but it gave me these mono tracks.

I need some guidance on the best solution for mixing the audio to be either stereo or come from the center speaker in a 3-5 channel setup.

Any advice on the software?

I use Premiere 6.02, an audio plug in or a compatible program would be ideal. I can't seem to find anything in the audio plug-ins provided to resolve this problem.

I'm guesing mixing in 5.1 is out of the question without a pricey piece of software.

Anybody else in this same position?

Premiere 6 offers the option to use the left or right channel only sound in both channels.

Choose Clip->Audio Options->Duplicate Left to use the left channel.

Thanks, yes I am aware of that, but I wanted to have more control. Is this the standard way people work with dialog?

I just purchased a plug in called PanHandler (i'm waiting for the premiere 6 version) It claims to allow you to make 5.1 sorround sound in premiere.

Any other tips?

I am in need of a light for my Canon XLS-1 so that I can shoot
scenes that are in dark places.

Canon sells this light for the camera off their website:

Battery Video Light VL-10Li
This compact, yet powerful video light can be used for both indoor and outdoor shooting.

I was wondering if anyone has ever used this light for the XLS-1 and if it works well when filming dark areas.

Or if anyone knows of another light that works well with the Canon XlS-1, I would appreciate any info.

Thanks for the help as always. This board is great and everyone is so helpful.

Hello everyone,

I have gone through about a dozen recordings all on Panasonic 83 ME tapes (all new) with a new XL1s. I have noticed some distortion (horizontal banding) staggering the recorded images, quite noticible, lasting a fraction of a second.

Don't seem to be any pattern to timing of these glitches or location on tapes, but occurs at least three to six times on a tape.

Is there something wrong with these tapes? Should I run new tapes through the camera on FF and RW before I use them, as I read in some video mag. Is there any possibility of the problem with the transport or recording head in the camera?

Wondering if anyone else might have had same or similar problem.

Thank you again, you've been a great help always!

Yes, fast forwarding and rewinding is a good habit to get into. It evens the tension on the tape, smooths out the position of the tape and allows any loose particles to fall off (avoiding drop outs). I would try a shorter length tape and see if the problem persists.

Jeff