I am sending my XL2 back due to incompatability with any Sony VTRs. I have personally tested 3 x XL2's & all had problems with 3 different VTRs, one being a DSR11 DVCAM deck & the other 2 being DRH1000 mini DV decks. It is more noticeable in XL2's but now I see why I have been having some other problems with my XL1 & XL1s as well. I have heard somewhere that Sony has a fix for this but nothing concrete yet. Anyone else heard of this or had similar problems?
Looking forward to feedback.

Pete Constable.

PS about to try dubs to Digi Beta.

Why did you not send your VTRs back???!!

Because I don't have any compatibility problems with any other camera or any other deck. This is a very serious issue. Not to be taken lightly. In part already acknowledged by Cannon.

When you say you have a problem with the dsr11, what would that be? Can you be more specific?

Pete,

I just successfully dubed a tape from my XL2 to my DSR11. I wanted a dupe with continuous timecode, the master tape had a break in it.

Everything worked perfectly. Just hooked up a four pin to four pin firewire from the cam to the back of the deck. Hit Play on the camera, record on the deck. No problem.

Of course, I'm dealing with NTSC here in the states, so maybe it's a pal issue? What problems are you having?

Firstly let me say this is a playback issue.
When using tapes recorded in XL2 cameras, the problem occurs when trying to playback on Sony VTR's.
Yes it may well be a Pal problem.
I did a lot of testing on 2 DHR1000NR Pal VTR's & a DSR11 Pal VTR.
Got huge amounts of blocking/dropouts on all tapes tested on 1 of the DHR1000 decks & about 50% on a 2nd DHR1000 deck & 40% failure on a DSR11 DVCAM deck. These 3 cameras were all brand new XL2 Canon cameras & most of it performed in front of Canon engineers. Mostly totally unuseable footage when the problem occurred.
All footage played back perfectly from the 3 cameras though.
This is a studio problem, not a hobbyist problem. Cheers PC

Ahh, how odd. I use the dsr 11 to play back all the tapes shot on the Xl2 and Xl1, no problems whatsoever.

Hi Richard,
Canon have said that Sony have acknowledged that there is a problem between XL cameras & their decks, but this info came from Canon. I suspect that the reverse is more likely to be the case. Imagine everyone having to return all Sony VTR's. Ah sure! I only have a problem with Canon cameras, not JVC, Samsung, Sharp, Panasonic etc etc etc. Problem has to be at Canons end. I'm surprised that no one else has the problem !
I can't play anything recorded on my XL2 on my deck at all. Other decks at random produce very bad results. PC

In the US I have been using my Canon cameras (GL1 & XL2) successfully with my Sony GV-D300 for 3 years. No problems.

Definately sounds like a PAL issue. No problems playing the Xl2 tapes on my dsr 11. And no problems playing the xl1 tapes either.

"Curiouser and curiouser" said Alice

I have had no problems playing Xl1 and Xl2 tapes on my Sony DSR-20P and that's PAL. The number of tapes I've used is so large that if there were a problem, I should have seen it.

Lauri,

Same here.

If a tape won't play back on a decent quality deck, in almost every case it is because the camera's heads are out of alignment. Canon XL1's and GL1's were often plagued by this problem, and I heard of numerous instances of it happening. You should be able to send the camera back and get a new one. With all the thousands of XL1's and GL1's that were sold, it wasn't all that many, percentagewise, that had the problem, so it must have been loose manufacturing/inspection/quality control tolerances. I don't think it's a design flaw in the cameras, just a little manufacturing sloppiness.