Greetings gang, I've been reading the posts and threads and appreciate all the tips. I have been using a Canon Hi-8 video camera for videotaping live community theater (for cast use and theater archive purposes) and finally upgraded to the XL-2. I rented one last year but do not recall exactly what all the settings were that worked so well. though it it mostly low light, I do not want the movement to get blurry so I think I'll use 60i. I want to produce DVDs, so I'l likely keep it simple with 4:3 aspect ratio. I plan to use auto focus until it is where I want it then switch to manual on the fly. I plan to do the same thing with the exposure using e-lock & the iris dial. I have not had any luck using the theater microphones, I get buzz & feedback so I plan to use the front mic, should I turn on attenuation? I will be very close to the audience and roughly 25 feet from the front of the stage. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, the shows run start to finish with no breaks so I get one chance to get it down right, continuous. Looking for "safe settings" and tips.
Thanks, Jim

Welcome to DVinfo Jim! For starters, see this list of threads:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=60275

I plan to use auto focus until it is where I want it then switch to manual on the fly.

As you may know, the 20x lens as a switch on it to do a quick auto-focus while in manual focus mode. So you wouldn't have to switch between manual/auto-focus.

Attenuation is for use when you are in environment with really loud ambient sound and you want to cut the levels across the board. When I am recording live stuff with the shotgun mic I just tweak the levels where one is higher and one is lower so if the higher one peaks I've got a backup.