I did a search but could not find a definative answer. Can you output a video signal from the XL1s RCA port that includes the tapes "timecode"? Cannon send me a reply to this question with pages to reference in the manual but that seems to be for date, real time, shutter, gain etc., not timecode. Am I missing something?

If this is not possible, is there a solution short of buying a recorder/player deck?

Thanks!

As far as I know it is not possible to output the timecode with
the signal on the RCA port indeed. However, the timecode is
available in your DV stream and premiere (or other NLE) should
be able to display it. I have once seen a plugin for premiere that
read the timecode from Premiere and writes it out as text on
your video.

With the XL1, the on-screen button of the remote control toggles the timecode display on/off - including on the analog outputs. The default is ON for camcorder mode and OFF for playback mode.

I do not know whether or not the XL1s works the same.

I don't remember, does it show frames or just hh:mm:ss;?

Well, I solved my problem but don't know what I was doing wrong. Sometimes I look so hard I can't see the solution or what's wrong. The XL1s will display timecode as h:mm:ss:ff, record speed, play arrow, tape & remaing time on tape. I just pushed the ON SCREEN and it worked. Thanks for all those that helped.

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Lohman : the timecode is
available in your DV stream and premiere (or other NLE) should
be able to display it. -->>>

FWIW, not sure about Premiere, but After Effects has a timecode effect.