I'm having really bizarre, and bad, digital break ups on a tape shot with a Canon XL-1. I'm also having a heart attack, because said tape is part two of a short film shot 2.5 years ago and I'm trying to edit it.

My friend said to try and play it from the original XL-1; no can do, since it's long gone. Tape 1 doesn't have this problem, and the dv dubs I made two years ago seem to be fine, according to my friend.

I'm going to try playing the tape on a Sony DSR-11 or something other than a JVC camera and see what happens. I'm going to step away from the ledge now.

FYI, I've tried cleaning the heads, but no luck.

heath

Hi community,

sorry that I haven't been around for awhile, been out of town for a year. (Jobs)
Anyway, I need some urgent info and help. I will be going on to a 2 day shoot, where they will be using the XL2.
My problem is since I will be editing it but only have a the XL1s to feed any footage to my Mac.
Will there be any problem or quality loss when playing back footage on the XL1s that was captured on the XL2?

Thanks for any info and for the fast reply.

Also just wanted to say I'm back now. :-)

Shaggy

Others will know more and I'm sure will chime in, but I see no problem with what you are going to do.

The video goes onto the tape already compressed and whatever camera or deck you capture on will just be reading 1s & 0s. No loss at all!

Mike

Quite correct - in fact, you could even use a little Euro400 camera to play back and it would be fine...
(and don't anyone dare ask if Euro400 is a make of camera!!!)

Robin

My Friends,

I am new to the XL1s. I have a firestore 3.

What do you suggest the best settings for me on a 3x lens in bright sunlight?
Thank you! (I am a newbie on this site and hobby)

Hello Pat,

Welcome to the boards!
You could use a UV filter, not only to protect your lens from the sunlight, but just to protect your lens. Cheaper then buying a new lens, if there is a scratch ;-)

I don't know if the 3x has any ND filters on it, maybe you should buy one seperately if not.
So you can have an (relatively) open iris in bright sunlight (so you still can have a small Depth of Field = filmic - if that is what you are looking for of course)

Can anyone tell me what an xl of xls is worth used? I am intersted in purchasing but not sure about price?

A search of our classifieds would be one way to get an idea of this:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/search.php?searchid=84428

Also check Ebay, especially auctions that have ended. Not much of a better way to find out. Also check with dealers like B&H for used equipment. You are probably looking at $1,800 to $3,000 depending on accessories.

Mike

We're the tapes left somewhere that there were magnets?? Also, monitors can mess up tapes.

Oh, and the main thing I have found that is a tape (and all equipment) killer?? Humidity...and FL has lots of it. Right now, the humidity up here in New England is horrible. I run a de-humidifer 24/7 and keep all my tapes and equipment in the room. The ideal humidity is between 45-50%..

True, true, true. I hooked up the FX1 and had little problems, except one walking shot. My friend is going to capture that shot and we'll do an iChat/AOL IM transfer this weekend.

heath

Hello Everybody

I've looked into matte boxes a great deal, and know quite a bit about them, but not enough about some "technical" stuff. (not technical, really; just concerns about sizing/vignetting.). What I'm wondering is if the Cavision 16x9 matte box (found on B&H for $400) and 3 filter stages will pose any problems for use on an xl1s. (any vignetting?) Because it's a 16x9 box, and I'll be shooting in 4x3, wilil there be less shade protection? I'm just thinking toward the future when I'll be upgrading to the XL2, and will have native 16x9. Oh, and does the Cavision 16x9 box use 4x4 filters, or 4x5?

I knnow all about Chrosziel, Century Optics, Petroff, etc., but have decided that Cavision is the one for me right now. But, as always, you get what you pay for.....I know......

Thanks a lot everyone!

~Clint Grant~

AH, forget this. I'm just gonna save up a bit longer and buy the Century Optics stuff. Thanks anyways.

~Clint Grant~

just would like to share my expirience.
have my xls-1 exact one year. at my first shoot the autofocus (green square) was hunting and i posted here to get some answers.

since i got a lot advice, i have never used the auto setting anymore, and since most of my jobs are in a theatre/ studio setting, i shoot in spotlight/ or man, autofocus off, stabilizer off, mode.

super quality...thanks guys/ gals

super board

greetings

Has anyone found a supplier for a 90 degree firewire cable (one that goes up, not sideways) so the user can access the main start/stop buttton while outputing to a DTE device such as an FS-4?

Bruce,

Someone else here recommended Firewire Depot (http://fwdepot.com/thestore/default.php/cPath/2_97) for 90 degree Firewire cables. B&H doesn't stock any that I could find.

Those cables are not cheap.

I have used this supplier:
http://www.ntcdistributing.com/products/fwangled.htm

I did a google on "right angle firewire" and there were other hits.

Here's a simple setup. Adjust to taste.

The 3x lens has an ND filter. Turn it on.
Set Gain to -3db
Set White balance to A
Use Tv mode with shutter speed set to 60.

When you are onsite shooting a scene, look to see if the camera is selecting an aperture greater than 8, increase the shutter speed until you get the aperture to 8 or less.

Press Exposure lock to keep the camera from recalculating the settings. If you want it to auto adjust, then don't lock the exposure.

Experiment with your camera and learn how it works. Observe the results. THen read the manual again. More of it will make sense. Pick a topic and search for discussions here and learn.

Is there a way to record from VHS tape into the XL1.

Jeff

Connect your vhs video and audio outs to the back of the xl1, put that baby in vtr mode and away you go.

The original XL1 does not support analog video input, only from the IEEE1394 input and through the lens. Thus you would have to pass the signal through an analog-to-DV converter..

However, the XL1s model does.

I would welcome any comments (e.g. camera settings. aperture range to be used) concerning first hand experience with this lens coupled to an XL1s. I have recently acquired one (DG version) and one of my first lessons was that I need a ND filter ASAP.

Thanks,

Guus

I'm having some trouble determining what settings to put when I render out my xl1s footage when I shoot in "frame mode". I'm using Avid Xpress Pro to capture and to edit. When I export it gives the option for "file field order" of course odd (upper fields) and even (lower fields) or Single Field.

What do I set the field order to when shooting in this mode?
Is there some sort of interpret footage in Avid like in Premiere Pro?

Thanks for the help,

-Daniel

Daniel,

I believe you should just capture it as you would normal 60i video. That's the way it's going to come out of the camera. No need to mess with field order. What you will have in frame mode is cleaner motion signature without the interlace 'jaggies'. The video may appear to be more strobe-like but any single frame should be clean. This mode is often used when you know in advance you will be lifting stills out of the video.

regards,

-gb-

Why is footage shot on an XL1 has black side bars and footage shot on the XL1-S does not? Or am I missing something?

Thasnks for any info

See http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=1743

Noob question here. If I am shooting the same event on multiple tapes, how do I keep the timecode continuous between tapes? I usually go through 2-3 tapes for each event i shoot and the TC always resets at the start of the next tape. How do I keep the timecode continuous from tape to tape?

Ryan,

Unless I'm mistaken, you can't do that with the XL1s. That's one of the features that was added to the XL-2. I don't know what NLE you're using, but most will allow you to 'name' the reel and then you'll log clips from that reel (tape). Just name the reel the same as you label your tapes and it won't be confusing.

-gb-

Isn't there s uch thing as purchasing a warranty for a used camera.. I though B&H had them.

Hmmm. I've not heard of any on the same sense as a new warranty from the manufacturer. I suppose some dealers migh offer a short term warranty (e.g., 30 to 90 days) on used gear, and you may be able to buy a third party maintenance/service agreement, but used equipment is an "iffy" thing, and it might be costly.

Have you tried to google the subject?

I just bought an XL-1 from B & H and from what i gather its covered with a 14 day return policy and a 30/90 day work/parts warranty.

Greetings from Cincy,
I'm new to the forum but glad I found it.
My question is....I do alot of music videos/live performance shows and have never had to much luck with pulling a direct sbd patch into the Xl1s. What equipment would you suggest to use as a preamp/mixer for better performance. It's extremely hard to monitor sound during a live show, and rely mostly on the visual monitoring of the levels, but I am doing something wrong because everytime its either clipped to the bajesus or not enough gusto, but my audio levels are right on.
Thoughts, comments??
Thanks in advance.

A DP has expressed an interest in renting my XL1-S occasionally for tests and rehearsals.
Any suggestions on what a reasonable day rate would be? I'm in Vancouver BC.
Nelson

You should get decent sound with the XL1. Clipping implies an improper setup, probably overdriving the XL1 inputs.

How are you feeding audio to the XL1, and what settings are you using?

If you are shooting from near the sound baod and have an electrically clean environment, the easy setup is to take a tape output form the mixer (typically abotu -10 dBV level) to the Audio 1 input, and use manual audio level control.

If the mixer only has balanced outputs, that is OK, and in fact better if you have to run cable some distance to the XL1 or are in an electrically noisy environment. They you will need a XLR adapter such as the MA-100, Studio One, Beachtek, etc. Be sure to match levels, the MA-100/200 is not designed for line level input, only for mic level inputs.

Hi all,

I introduced myself in the "Neighborhood" forum here;

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=52140

I greatly appreciate the opportunity to learn from experienced, knowledgable people and I will try not to abuse the priviledge (by doing research and leg work first, then asking).

When I started capturing from miniDV tape I realized how little hard drive space I actually have. I happen to have a couple of 120GB IDE hard drives around so I thought about getting an external 1394 enclosure and installing my editing program on it, and basically keeping this drive for DV only. Do you have any recommendations about which ext enclosure works best and any other considerations?

Also, I have found myself in need of being able to produce slow motion for technical analysis and while I can slow things down in editing, if the "detail" isn't there on tape, it won't be in the final. Having worked as a still photographer I'm aware of the relationship between shutter speed and f-stop with regard to exposure, and when I worked with 16mm in the military, I knew that to produce slow motion, a higher frame rate was needed. I'm not seeing that the XL1s has this capability with regard to FPS so I'm a little confused. Will adjusting shutter speed give me what I want in this situation?

Also, I shot some tape that when captured and encoded, looks fuzzy, or at least not as sharp as it could be. This was using the auto focus mode. Do I need to manually focus to "set" the auto focus so it will be sharp?

You can find an example of what I am talking about here, it's a 5,700k file;

http://www.digihub.com/05-09-21_BD.wmv

Thanks in advance to allowing me to benefit from your wisdom and experience.

Ken

(my biggest fumble yet, traveling hundreds of miles to two different shoots and then realizing I didn't have my on-camera mic turned on, sheeez)

Hello all, I am new here. After searching before posting i was unable to find the answer but what have you all found to be the battery of choice for extended life. I still only have the stock battery. I have seen ones advertised on Ebay as having a 7.5 or 8 hr life. I am looking for a battery that will allow me to record for extended periods before swicthing the battery or charging. Any advice you guys can give is appreciated. thanks

Jason,

you may want to look at one of the add-on accessories, the CH-910. It is a dual charger holder that holds 2 batteries. If memory serves me right, you can even switch batteries on it as you are shooting.

hope this helps,
~Mike

Dear Jason,

I have purchased some of the Canon BP-945 type batteries on Ebay. Four of the one's I purchased were outstanding ($31.00 each in 2003). I could power the XL1s, at idle for over 18 hours, and many hours of recording, more than 4 hours, probably 7 hours. In general, I can tape constantly for half a working day without worrying about the battery.

I purchased 12 more from another vendor (Less than $20 each in 2005) and they were also good, but not quite as good as my first four.

If you are interested powering the camera for an extended period of time, you may use the dual battery adapter, as mentioned above.

Also, you can purchase the car adapter/charger from Canon which allows you to use a 12 to 24 volt battery system. Two car batteries, or 4-6 volt Golf Cart batteries will power the camera for weeks. As this setup is not very portable, it will probably not suit your needs.

However, the car battery adapter / charger is very handy in that you can charge one battery as long as you have access to a vehicle. I find that this battery charger does not drain the car battery excessively while charging the camera battery.

Ken, welcome to the forum.

People here are very friendly, but I think your post has gone unanswered because your first question was not specific to XL1 / XL1s cams at all, and the others only marginally. Also, there is a collection of questions that are unrelated to each other, making it more of a chore to answer. No worries, These are common errors for new guys, and even experienced hands forget sometimes. Choose the forum for each subject carefully, keep the scope of each post narrow, and I'm sure you'll find this website to be all you hoped for and more.

Frame rate is not adjustable. Some cams allow you to select either 30 fps or 24 fps, but that's it. 60i is still 30 fps, but with two interlaced fields per frame. Increasing the shutter speed will have the effect of exposing each frame more quickly and thus reducing the blur of fast moving objects.

I looked at your link. That's a nice little clip, very watchable even with the focus issue--I ran it five or six times. Autofocus is often unreliable in dim lighting, so yes, manual would have been better. Was it humid? If the cam had come out of an air conditioned vehicle, or even if the dew point was rising due to weather condtions, A thin film of condensation might fuzz it up also.

Hi everyone,

I am a young starting filmmaker and have been shooting my short films with a Hi8 camera. I just recently started learning about camcorders and got myself a Canon XL1. Does anyone have any ADVICE that they can give me for acheiving the best look and sound? I watched this one mans independent film that was shot with the same XL1 camera and for some reason the quality did not seem very well. I heard that there is a better solution to transferring your video directly from your camera to your computer, but I'm unsure of it. If there is anyone who has suggestions to getting great picture quality and sound that would be great. Thank you.

Chad, I have one piece of advice for you: Look around these boards.

Seriously, and I don't mean to sound mean, but before you ask for advice, you might want to look around. These boards are full of great information. Feel free to ask any specific questions, though, and you'll have a slew of people ready to answer.

Thanks and welcome!

Kevin

Hi everyone,

I am a young starting filmmaker and have been shooting my short films with a Hi8 camera. I just recently started learning about camcorders and got myself a Canon XL1. Does anyone have any ADVICE that they can give me for acheiving the best look and sound? I watched this one mans independent film that was shot with the same XL1 camera and for some reason the quality did not seem very well. I heard that there is a better solution to transferring your video directly from your camera to your computer, but I'm unsure of it. If there is anyone who has suggestions to getting great picture quality and sound that would be great. Thank you.

hello chad,

kevin has a good point.
got myself a xl1-s last year, been learning by reading a lot, here, and everything else i can get my hands on it. off course, i learn also by shooting, reviewing, writing my settings down, going to rehearsals etc. trial and error.
over the last year the quality of my videos has improved..a lot...but i still have no clue about a lot of things.
i learned here, that you get super answers to specific questions, but nobody wants to do other people homeworks. which is cool with me.

i think the best connection (no loss of frames) is the IEEE 1394 no matter were too. (pc,vtr, monitor)

greetings

i recently was going to rent a xl-2 for something but i ended up buying one instead. One store here in edmonton was going to charge like 215 dollars per day. I know its not the same camera but hope it helps anyways. You can also call local places around where you are and ask how much they charge to rent theirs

In Belgium I saw one on the internet renting it for 52 euros a day.

As a soon-to-be owner of a DTE (direct to edit) device, I'm wondering if it is possible to do 100% TRUE tapeless recording.

Obviously, you need to have a tape in your camera in order to allow it to record. You can't tape DTE if you can't push the record button!

But I'm wondering if it is bad for a camera to have a tape casing with it's tape removed running in record mode.

I would think that it is OK since there is zero friction on any of the heads, but I'm not a mechanical engineer so I don't know if the camera heads actually NEED to have tape running through them to perform properly.

I would rarely or never do this because I would want to have a tape for archival purposes anyway, but in the case I wanted to shoot something quick and simple--like a birthday home movie, let's say--it would be cool to be able to go 100% TRUE tapeless.

So the question is: Is it bad for an XL1 or GL2 to not have any tape in the MiniDV tape casing while "recording"?

Thanks!

i've, i think, a great problem.
i shoot my documentary with 1/25shutter. now i wanna change my materials in 25p (like panasonic dvx100). sorry my camera is a PAL XL1S .
do you know a solution?

There are a number of software solutions for this. One of them is DVFilm Maker, however I think they suggest shooting at 1/50 shutter speed for best results: http://www.dvfilm.com/maker/

I explain better. I have already shooted, about 25 hours, to 1/25 shutter. I would like to remove part of the Riverbero on the images. I have used Magic Bullet V.2 but without visible results.
Some solution?

I am having problems setting up my new radio mic(seinnhiser 100) with the xl1s, i bought a MA200 for the camera.
question: can i have the onboard mic and the radio mics running together,can i switch/mix the "onboard mic" and the "radio mic"..... as in a wedding set-up. priest/onboard mic...groom/radio mic, will final cut express show the radio mic as two channels on the timeline or one channel, or wht would be the best set-up.
john.

Anyone Know !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!