Hi all

I've captured DV PAL Anamorphic with FCP and have also set the sequence to have the same settings as capture settings. It's showing as widescreen ok but it's asking to render the timeline? What gives?

Donie

Just needed to make sure that I was using the same preset for both capture and sequence. Sorry for asking such a basic question but I was just lost for a few minutes. Brain has stopped working today. Only starting to use 16:9 with the new XL2

My god, the picture is beautiful compared to the XL1s. I'm no expert but I watch enough stuff to know what looks good and what looks bad.

I was messing with the gain in 16:9 mode and I'm really impressed, there is so little difference between -3 all the way to +12. The XL1s starts to look like crap after +6.

Lens is nice, the stored zoom and focus presets are nice especially for us that can't afford a decent tripod ;) It allows you to do a nice smooth crawl without touching the camera. Just set your end point and pull back and let it go back into it by itself. Nice. Speed can adjusted from 1 to 16 on the zoom. Focus is 3 steps with the fastest being instant to very to quick at slow, at least in my test.

Autofocus seems to have trouble at high gain with very fine oscillation at the focus point. Didn't go away either, but it was a hard test. Seems to hunt a lot in lowish light. Havn't tested outdoors but I'd expect it to be good but I'll wait and see.

It's heavy, a bit more than the XL1s. More front heavy I would say considerign the bigger lens.

25p mode is nice for closeup on stills etc. I use the camera for wakeboarding videos sometimes and I guess it might have problems there. I'll be testing that this summer ;)

Cover behind battery over audio and video in/outs seems a bit flimsly and seems to want to open all the time. Does not lock down well.

Viewfinder is excellent as it flips up and allows you to shoot without looking into the viewfinder with your eye all the time. Handy sometimes. Pity the VF lcd screen was not widescreen, it's 4:3 and cropped top and bottom to display the 16:9. Make it appear smaller that it should have been. Text appears to be squished in this 16:9 mode, difinatly seems larger and clearer in 4:3 mode.

Having the audio meters in the VF is cool, now you can keep a check without having to bend your head to look at monitors on side. I'd be inclined to say that the LCD on side of machine is of little value now as everything is in VF where you would normally be looking.

It took me a good few weeks to decide to buy this camera. I'm not sorry. Still be paying for it next month but at least I'll be happy ;)

Ok, hope that helps somebody.

Donie

Thanks!

JS