I have a unique problem, but maybe someone has run into the same problem. My small production company provides the video feed for our local University's jumbotron. We use two Canon XL-1s on the press box video decks to follow the action. We use an older Canon XL-1 for the field Camera.

The first three games went great (They were all at night)

We ran into a problem at our last game the XL-1 appeared very dark on the Jumbotron. we switched locations to see if it was a cord issue and it was the same picture.

I played with all of the adjustments that I know about, ND filter, Gain adjustments, White balence, you name it. It resulted in a very ugly looking picture.

The mystery is, the picture looked fine in the viewfinder and I put a tape in and recorded some footage and the footage looked correct.

Now the day was very bright and we were dealing with shadows, but this is the first time I ever encountered this problem.

We are shooting a High School Play-off game on Sat. and I would appreciate any help or ideas.

Thanks

The only thing I could think of at this moment was perhaps a
busted composite/svhs output port (or the circuitry before it)?
Or if not, it must be something else in the chain (cables, switchers
etc.) since it looks good in the viewfinder and on tape.

I was thinking about an ND filter you had switched on by
accident, but that would've been visible in the viewfinder and
on tape as well.

Sorry I really don't have an answer to your question but I do have a question of my own for you. What were you using to output from the XL1? I tried to go RCA out to a recording booth during one event but it always displayed the viewfinder information and couldn't get just a plain view.

I wasn't able to try S-vid so I'm not sure if that works. I know firewire will work in that method but for analog systems firewire doesn't get it done. Appreciate the help.

We output through a RCA Video, to an adaptor, to co-axial that then runs up to the booth.

The other camera's feeds are S-Vid. We run it all into a MX-50 that then runs to the Jumbotron controlroom.

We don't worry about audio.

I learned the hardway about the on screen display, you have to use the remote to get rid of it...but the camera will still have the display in your viewfinder but your program monitor will be true and the display should be gone.

Just press the "on screen" button and it should work.

The XL-1s fixed that problem and you can get rid of the on screen display on the camera, but you can not do it on the camera with the XL-1, just with the remote

Of course I learn that lesson with an hour and a half before kick-off with the remotes back at the office.

What happens when you hook the camera up over the S-Video out?
If that looks OK you could build a simple S-Video to RCA adapter until you send the camera to service.