Blue Barn Pictures XL2 Presets Manager discussion thread

[Ash Greyson]

The middle of the month wont be as busy for me... I will get some more going then. Feel free to email me Chris...



ash =o) ashVID@aol.com

[Bruce S. Yarock]

Chris,
Excuse this if you got a previous email, but a guy helping me snet it from your closed thread, and I'm not sure if you got it. Anyways...
We installed Blue barn, but it won't recognize the XL2( says 'cant find camera"). We also downloaded Canon's pc dv recorder software, and that works fine. In addition, we connected to Vegas, and thatt captured the xl2 perfectly.
We set the xl2 to "ext control' and had the dv control on.I have never used it with another xl2. We downloaded the presets, but of course couldn't do anything with them.
Thanks
Bruce S. Yarock

[Chris Hurd]

Hi Bruce,

Sorry to hear this -- let me see if I can summon some outside help.

[Bruce S. Yarock]

Chris,
We got it working.We found that the avc driver had not installed in the device manager,"yellow?"( It didn't install the driver on its'own).. We updated the driver,went ble barn folder,and installed the driver. Now it works great. Thanks to you guys and blue barn.
Here's a realted question-In order to load a preset into the xl, the xl has to be in ext.con. We loaded the preset "documantary" to the xl2. Then we turned off etx. cont.,and swithed to manual, the look changed from what we viewed when we were about to load it. Does this make sense?
Also, we stumbled upon the Canon dv to pc recorder ( on Canon's site), and it works great. It won't , however,let you capture tape to the pc, only live shooting.
Thanks again
Bruce S. Yarock

[Chris Hurd]

The look changed from what you viewed when you were about to load it... not quite sure I follow your meaning. When in Ext. Cont. mode, when you hit "set preset" in the BlueBarn app, you'll see the look of that preset in the XL2 viewfinder. Then when you switch to one of the camera program modes, the look in the viewfinder should change because you haven't toggled on the custom preset yet. If you get what I mean.

At any rate, glad to hear you've got it going!

[Marty Hudzik]

Originally Posted by Bruce S. Yarock

Chris,
Here's a realted question-In order to load a preset into the xl, the xl has to be in ext.con. We loaded the preset "documantary" to the xl2. Then we turned off etx. cont.,and swithed to manual, the look changed from what we viewed when we were about to load it. Does this make sense?
Bruce S. Yarock

In external ctrl mode the XL2 seems to go into some very generic settings that you cannot control. Here is what I observed.

Defaults to 60i (obvious to an experience 24P user)
Defaults to 4x3 (umm...duh...you can see this)
defaults to auto WB (not so obvious but it happens)
defaults to auto gain
defaults to auto shutter

YOu cannot see a readout of this but I fooled around and could see this.

THe gain light was on. The shutter light came on and the colors went south (WB)

So I think that you have to disregard what you are seeing on the camera until you move back into a "real" camera mode and not the ext. ctrl.

It would be sweet to tweak your camera setting from the PC in real time but it just doesn't seem possible.

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Marty Hudzik

In external ctrl mode the XL2 seems to go into some very generic settings that you cannot control. Here is what I observed.

Defaults to 60i (obvious to an experience 24P user)
Defaults to 4x3 (umm...duh...you can see this)
defaults to auto WB (not so obvious but it happens)
defaults to auto gain
defaults to auto shutter

YOu cannot see a readout of this but I fooled around and could see this.

THe gain light was on. The shutter light came on and the colors went south (WB)

So I think that you have to disregard what you are seeing on the camera until you move back into a "real" camera mode and not the ext. ctrl.

It would be sweet to tweak your camera setting from the PC in real time but it just doesn't seem possible.

You know Marty, I'm thinking that a more robust application would be able to take complete control and adjust those 'defaults' to whatever mode you wanted to. So, don't lose site of your dream of tweaking presets in real-time just yet.

Not confirmed, just a supposition on my part.

-gb-

[Bruce S. Yarock]

Marty,
Thanks for the info. I thought I was going crazy when I saw one look in ext. and then a completely different one back in manual (cam control).So what you're saying is that you can't preview the setting until you actually load it into the xl2, and swithc back to a recording mode?
Bruce S. Yarock

[Patrick King]

Originally Posted by Bruce S. Yarock

... you can't preview the setting until you actually load it into the xl2, and swithc back to a recording mode?
Bruce S. Yarock

That is still way quicker than the old method of manually putting each setting in throught the Menu commands on the cam.

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Bruce S. Yarock

So what you're saying is that you can't preview the setting until you actually load it into the xl2, and swithc back to a recording mode?

Yes Bruce, that is correct, as I explained in the Presets Manager article located at:

http://www.dvinfo.net/canonxl2/articles/article15.php

-- second paragraph from the bottom. Pretty much everything you need to know about this application is there; hopefully you read it before downloading the software!

By the way I have merged this thread with our original discussion about the Presets Manager app; we need to keep all of these posts under one roof. Thanks,

I've been a mac user for a long time, but have a fairly new Sony Vaio that I'm downloading Blue Barn to right now.

While I was downloading it I was thinking that if this program is as good as I think it's going to be, wouldn't it be great if a program be written for pocket organizer devices (like a Palm)?

I don't even carry a Palm or any other electronic organizer, but would buy one specifically for this purpose to allow more mobility (allowing you to slip it into your pocket or camera case).

I don't know, do those devices even have firewire ports? Just curious.

I'm looking forward to trying this out on my Vaio & the Mac version too!

[Chris Hurd]

Hi Derek,

Such a thing could happen if (and when) there is ever a PDA device running Pocket PC and equipped with FireWire. Unfortunately, no such thing yet exists.

[Evan Fisher]

So I downloaded the Blue Barn Pictures XL2 Presets Manager and loaded it up onto my Mac using Virtual PC 7 and Windows XP Pro only to discover that my software does not support firewire. Is there such a thing as a USB - Firewire DV adapter? Is Blue Barn planning a Mac version?

Thanks.

[Chris Hurd]

Hi Evan,

Sadly there is no such thing as a USB - FireWire converter. The BlueBarn XL2 Presets Manager application is designed to operate only on FireWire-equipped PC's, and there is no other way into an XL2 other than FireWire. There will be a Mac version but I don't yet have an estimated date of availability.

[Evan Fisher]

Since us Mac users cannot currently use the Blue Barn software, are these presets listed anywhere in a printable form so that I may input them manually?