Various GL1 / XM1 questions

[Ken Tanaka]

Hey, good for you! This is the first time I've heard of a consumer ordering replacement parts for a Canon camera.

[Trey Perrone]

yea i figured they would try to get me to send it in too...but after scouring the net and even ebay couldnt find it, so i called and just said i want the LCD circuit board...and walaaa my wish was granted.

i just cant see paying a couple hundred dollars to get it done when its a very simple replacement...if it was internal in the body i woulda passed the buck, but the LCD is a pretty east fix if you are semi-competent with electronics...

[Mike Donley]

One of my camera operators (my daughter) was using a GL1 during the photo session after a wedding ceremony. She was getting a shots of the activties in the sanctuary. So she was shooting short clips from 10 seconds to 50 seconds long. One of the clips had absolutely no sound. All other clips had sound, even the clip before and the clip after the offending clip. So there was a 10 second clip with sound, a 48 second clip without sound, and then 12 second clip with sound. She shot another 2 minutes of video (a number of short clips) on which the sound was normal.

She was using the camera mic. There are no external controls to turn off or turn down the sound for the camera mic that I know of. She did not go into any of the menus.

What would cause the lack of sound? Was this a warning that the camera mic may be starting to fail.

[Chris Hurd]

Suggest a trip to Canon factory service, considering its age, especially if it's never been serviced before. It's kind of like an oil change; should be done at least once per year.

[Robert Mann Z.]

i have a gl1 that sent to canon to repair the tape heads, they replaced the entire tape mechanism, $600 bucks...

when i got it back i noticed two white dots on my monitor...burnt pixels...i did not send the camera back to canon, or should i?

they told me the cost to fix would be $800 + shipping

if i were to sell it how much do they go for cams with burnt pixels, $100 or less?..it serves as a nice deck, recording is fine through 1394...

do i now own an expensive paper weight, i was thinking instead of fixing it just to buy a new cam..maybe a smaller pocket cam..

i had an old jvc 500 cam that would fix burnt pixels without sending it in by accessing a service menu, i take it the gl1 has no such feature...although it should, in fact all cams should have this...

any of your thoughts would help..thanks for reading

[Marco Leavitt]

Are the hot pixels recording to tape, or is it just the monitor? Either way, I think you'd be nuts to pay $800 to fix it. I'd just live with it. At the very least, you could use it as a deck.

[Robert Mann Z.]

they are showing on the tape...and i think you are right i would be nuts to pay and additional 800...

i might as well get a pana g400 or something

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Isn't it wrong that if you send your cam and pay 600 dollars that you get it back with another fault?

[Shawn Bishop]

I didn't really know about this problem because i thought it was normal really untill i looked at a friends lcd and it didn't look off color. Mine looks as though theres green and some weird colors you dont usually see in it. It doesnt effect the picture or anything, it's just irratating in some situations. Does anybody know if you can get this fixed, or how to fix it?


- thanks

[Hank Freeman]

I can't comment about your particular situation, but a point to made here is that you cannot and should not judge the color or chroma correctness of your shot by visually judging the image on the viewfinder.... a point made often but worth repeating.

[Shawn Bishop]

Yes I know this. But basically, it's just annoying. I look through the viewfinder to see how the image will be, but just looking through the lcd and it being off colored is a bit annoying. Just wondering though. Thanks

[Jeremy Davidson]

My Optura camera's viewscreen had a similar problem several months ago. Occasionally it would drop one or more of the primary colors (RGB) from the flip-screen (viewfinder always looked fine). If it looks greenish, it may be losing the red or blue color components. I found that the vibrations caused by opening the DV transport would sometimes throw it out of whack (or back in). Look at the white heads-up indicators to figure out what color may be missing. If this is the case, however, it should be quite obvious (for example, the blue background in VTR mode would be black instead).

Mine was still under warranty, so it has since been fixed. 'Thought I had posted about this in another thread, but I can't find it now.

[Richard Guaty]

Can anyone help me dub from a vcr to my GL1?

I have the three-way audio/video cable connecting the VCR and GL1, I have the camera set to VCR mode (camera as a player/recorder) and as the tape plays on the TV it wont play through the camera.

Are there GL1 menu presets that need to be applied?

[Mariano L. Honrado Jr.]

Hello Richard:

I could be wrong ('cuz I don't have a GL1) but what you are trying to do could be a new feature on the GL2. The procedure you describe is found in the GL2 operating instructions which you can download from the Canon website.

I hope it works the same way with the GL1.

Mabuhay!

[Jeremy Davidson]

If you go to the "VCR SET UP" menu, turn on the setting marked "AV->DV OUT" (page 104 in the manual as Mariano mentioned). This is what I use to pass an analog signal (from VHS) straight into my NLE via firewire.

...but again this is in regard to the GL2, so your mileage may vary.

Otherwise I'd just double-check to make sure you're coming out of the proper jacks on the back of your VCR. I have had some footage that had such bad tracking that the cam couldn't sync to it, but then you'll usually at least get some flickering on the LCD display.