As far as I know, the GL-1 does not have this option built in as the new GL-2 advertises . Any suggestions on how to record color bars at the beginning of every tape (after blackening, I presuime)? Thanks in advance.

There is an undocumented trick to displaying color bars on the GL-1, although they are not SMPTE-compliant bars. We used to have an article explaining the trick on the informational section of this site DVInfo.net but I sure can't find it any more. Perhaps someone else here remembers it?

Yes it's possible.
Here below the link of the complete procedure.

http://www.dvinfo.net/canon/sonof/watchdog.htm

Bravo Giampy!

BTW, the color bars on the GL1 are 100% levels, not SMPTE's 75%. But we put our GL1 on a broadcast vectorscope and waveform monitor and the bars were -extremely- good.

Just an FYI...