Just a quick question. My XL2 arrived tonight. Inside the Fed Ex packing box was the XL2 box. Although the XL2 box was closed using a flap system, it wasn't actually taped shut. There was no tape. Is that normal, or does Canon factory "seal" the box with some sort of packing tape.

The camera seems fine and works well. There's no evidence of anyone actually ever using it before. But is there some way to find out if the camea has been used before, say by accessing the tape drum, or camera operational hours?

Thanks much.

Douglas

Hi Douglas. When I recieved mines, it wasn't taped up either. Just the packaging box then the Canon box. I even took pictures of the package for insurance purposes. If you want to see how it looked when I first opened the box, visit these links:

http://www.dvfilms.net/images/xl2box3.jpg
http://www.dvfilms.net/images/xl2box2.jpg

Hope this helps,

Sid

I don't think there's any kind of "official seal" from Canon, if that's what you mean. The flaps keep the box closed. I received mine in the same way.

If you purchased your camcorder from an authorized Canon dealer, you should have no worries. All the sponsers for DVInfo are authorized sellers, for example. If you purchased elsewhere however, well...

Speaking of FedEx: how was your box delivered? Any signs of damage in the corners? How about the Canon box itself?

Fed Ex appears to handled the box reasonably well. There's no sign of outer box breakage and the XL2 box inside was entirely fine.

THanks for everyone's input. It puts my mind at ease.

Douglas

Douglas,

No taped seal on mine either, and Zotz (my retailer) says the open the box to remove the registration card to send to canon anyway.

My Canon box showed some signs of damage in two seperate, opposite corners of the box. The corners were crushed slightly as was the external box.

Camera works fine and everything appears to be in order, but this will happen occasionally for shipments to Hawaii. Next time I order, I'm going to insist on extra styrofoam.

I know that you said XL-2, but none of my XL-1 boxes were taped shut. They were interlocked cardboard as they were made to be and double boxed for shipping. No issues. It does seem like such a high priced item would be taped shut though.

I've noticed from those pictures that the new XL-2 boxes have gone environmental, brown bag look that is. I guess that's how they kept the price down to 5000K, not using all that high gloss paper and color print like the original XL-1 came in. Ha, ha, ha....

UK model, no seals and no damage, although the cover on the BNC and video out ports is a little slack!