Playback of what was captured on XL2

[Vipul Amin]

Hi,
Once I tape/ capture the event on XL2, I want to capture it on my computer/ hard drive.
Is there any difference in quality while playing back the tape on
1. some minDV cam like sony
2. or XL2

Anyone tested it? Or any technical/ expert thoughts/ ideas?

Thanks in advance....

[Greg Boston]

No difference. It all comes off the tape in a regular 60i format no matter how you shoot it on the XL2. It's up to YOU to set your NLE for the proper capture presets to deal with 24p, 16:9, etc.

-gb-

[Vipul Amin]

Understood.

XL2 captures using 3CCD. Regular Sony minDV cam (the one that I have) is no where close to it. I want to use Sony to play back the tapes and capture the video on Computer.

Will I be seeing any difference in color, sharpness etc. while playing back on Sony?

[Colton Davie]

What Greg said is correct. I capture tapes from my XL2 using a little Canon ZR500 all the time. The CCDs have nothing to do with playback. As far as I know, you shouldn't have a problem.

[Chris Barcellos]

Originally Posted by Vipul Amin

Hi,
Once I tape/ capture the event on XL2, I want to capture it on my computer/ hard drive.
Is there any difference in quality while playing back the tape on
1. some minDV cam like sony
2. or XL2

Anyone tested it? Or any technical/ expert thoughts/ ideas?

Thanks in advance....

No difference. Same 1's and 0's will be captured on computer, unless... the occasional reports about "tape alignment issues are true, where one camera will lay down the digital track at a place on the tape that another camera can't read it. This would be out of industry specs, but some have reported that type of problem.... Don't know if it is true.

[Vipul Amin]

Cool...Thank you all for your response and explaination...

[Craig Chartier]

If you do run into this alignment problem, playing back from the camera it was captured on will most likely sovle the issue. and then send that camera in for repair when you r done.

[Allan Beecroft]

No difference. It all comes off the tape in a regular 60i format no matter how you shoot it on the XL2. It's up to YOU to set your NLE for the proper capture presets to deal with 24p, 16:9, etc.

-gb-
__________________
Greg Boston
Sony PDW-F350, Panasonic PV-DV953, FCP Studio
"I want to drown my sorrows, but my spouse won't go swimming."

O.K., I'm going to sound like a right dufus now. Greg, any chance you could explain a little deeper with respect to how the XL2 records to DV tape and plays back. You mention that no matter how you shoot it on the XL2, it comes off the tape in 60i ?

I'm having difficulty grabbing the concept with all this frames stuff. If you record in different frame rates (i.e. 60i, 30p and 24p) and play them back directly from the XL2 tape to say a plasma monitor, will the output always be 60i ?

Any clarification you or anybody could give would be appreciated. As I say, I seem to be having problems grasping the whole frame rate concept.

Thanks,
Allan

[Alan James]

I don’t know if I can answer your question but I’ll try. 60i just means that 2 fields make up the image. If the 2 fields “fire”(?) at the same time then its progressive. If they fire one after the other it’s interlaced. Each field “fires” 30 times a second then are put together. Like I said if they fire together you get 30 fps but if they fire one after the other you get 60 half frames per second. In 24p mode it’s a combination of the two techniques. For some frames the fields are combined to create progressive frames and other fields are interlaced. Depending on your editing software your computer can recognize those fields and turn it into true progressive 24fps. 24p is also 30fps when you put it in the computer, however some frames are duplicated. The pattern is 2:3:3:2 or 2:3 whichever you have your camera set to. 2:3:3:2 means that 2 frames are the same frame then 6 are different frames then 2 more are the same. The easiest way to understand fields that I have found is to record some video on your camera with different frame rates, pull it over to the computer and look at it frame by frame at 100% in you NLE. You should be able to see some differences.

[Jarrod Whaley]

I think Alan explained it pretty well in general, but left out the explanation of why everything on the XL2 is output at 60i.

The reason for that is that the DV specification requires DV output to be 60i, or at least readable as such by interlaced monitors--because an interlaced monitor wouldn't be able to play back a "true" progressive signal. Because of this fact, the camera actually does shoot at 24 or 30 progressive, but then has to convert the progressive signal into an interlaced signal in order to meet the DV spec and ensure that interlaced monitors (like most TV's) will be able to play back the video. That process of conversion is basically exactly the same process by which film frames are telecined for interlaced video playback.

So, all of that having been said... The Xl2's output is DV spec, just like any other mini-DV camera, and so any other deck or camera can be used to play back tapes shot on the XL2, no matter what frame rate, aspect ratio, or other settings were used in production.

One final note: all of these topics have been discussed at length numerous times on this board. It doesn't take much time or effort to find this information here; this site already has pretty much everything you'd ever need to know about this camera.

[Allan Beecroft]

Alan & Jarrod,

Thanks for your time in helping clarify things a bit more. I appreciate the input. I was under the impression that when you set the camera to 30p or 24p, that's what went onto the tape. I now see that's a totally false perception and it boils down to the DV standard itself which is making more sense now.

I searched the site a bit more with respect to pulldown, progressive verses Interlaced etc and also read the help files in my NLE (Sony Vegas 6) which alltogether with your input has helped me grasp the concept.

I took the camera out today to a local nature area and played with some settings, then uploaded to Sony vegas 6 to play around with various formats to display on a 42inch plasma monitor and a normal TV.

It's been very informative and although this is the very first manual camcorder I've had, it's all coming together nicely and I'm already impressed with the results I'm seeing. Using the Waveform monitor and Vectorscope is also helping me get the look I want. Things are looking a lot more professional.

Thanks again for the input. Appreciate it.

Regards,
Allan

[Jarrod Whaley]

You're very welcome, Allan. Have fun. :)