I've owned my Canon XL1s for about 5 months now. I had to return it right away do to a bad pixel. Now, four months later, another bad pixel. I'm, of course talking about on the Image sensor (or at least not on the view finder, I'm not a tech).

Is this a common problem with XL1s? This camera is my livelyhood and I can't keep going through this.

Any thoughts on the issue?

All I can tell you is that I'm pretty sure it can be masked out. You have to send it in to Canon Service, but it is a fairly quick and straightforward procedure.

Are you talking about dead pixels? I have some dead pixels in my CCD. Every Canon camcorder I've owned eventually develops them. I registered for membership in the XL1 Club when it first came to be, but I think the benefits have long run out. I don't even have the original papers for that around anymore so I don't know how to prove I ever registered. I am also afraid to send it in to Canon as I'm sure they'll charge an arm and a leg to replace the CCDs. Also I hear horror stories of people sending in their XL1's to Canon and they come back with some sort of defect and they have to go back and forth a few times before it is truly fixed. My XL1 works fantastic except for the dead pixels and I don't want them screwing everything else up.

I too thought that I had a bad pixel in the viewfinder. Brought it to the Canon repair center... had to leave it for a couple of days, everything worked out fine.
The camera had been working well ever since. The tech was helpful and informative.
I hope that they keep up their good work and support their products like they should.