Modifying a Canon XL1 Video Camera

[jon]

I have an XL1 video camera I purchased for a company project in 2000 and it was never used, in fact it is still in pristine condition, having only a couple of hours use since new. It is not worth very much now, but it is a super SD camera that uses MiniDVD tapes. I am thinking about converting it to record on solid state media. This would require removing the tape drive and replacing it with a mini recorder. At the moment I am just thinking about the practicality of the modification. The other anomaly is the useful digital output from the 'Firewire IEEE 1394' socket, there are very few adapters or connecting devices around now for this obsolete format, although it was a premium digital connection solution in it's day.

Has anybody any thoughts on such a project..?

[Theo]

How do you propose to do that? Is there S-Video or something inside that can be tapped off?

Firewire doesn't play nicely over USB, but there are PCIe cards and Thunderbolt adapters (well, the Apple one, although it needs another adapter to Thunderbolt 3 for most modern laptops - somewhat pricey). Keep the existing tape and use Firewire to offload video?

Theo

[newshound]

Heroic. It will look impressive, but I doubt if it will match the performance of an entry level domestic camera.

[jon]

I can't use PCI cards, my two NUC computers have thundebolt three connections and none of my laptops have firewire.....I have not seen a direct 1394 to Thunderbolt three adapter.

[jon]

It was a good camera in its day, but only SD of course.....the film '28 Days Later' was filmed with XL1 cameras.

[John Rumm]

Easy enough to get PCI firewire cards still. Some of the better cameras could also be used as real time digitizers - feeding video in on composite or s-video, and outputting to the firewire.

You will no doubt be able to tap off a RGB or composite feed from the camera somewhere, so could add a digitizers to that (ignoring the internal one). The tricky bit might be getting iot to perform properly as a camera without a running tape - depending on what of any interlocks are present.

You might even be able to interface the camera sensor to the camera input on a raspberry Pi, which includes most of the other hardware you would need.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Most pro video cameras have an easy way of providing an external video feed. Others - not just the cameraman - need to see the pictures.

It is also interlaced video, which may not look so good these days.

It's not something that was (much) used for pro broadcast even in those days. Although maybe for a situation where it had to be small and disposable. ;-) Or maybe for news, etc.

[Nick Odell]

I think it could be great fun as a project and the more Heath-Robinson/Steampunk the better IMO.

OTOH people are asking good money for one of those cameras on eBay: enough to pay for a new, decent-ish 4K job.

Nick

[jon]

There are outputs for RGB and s-video, but I wanted to utilise the digital output. It would be straight forward if could obtain a mini real time recorder with a firewire input.

[Fredxx]

A 3CCD camera, awesome in it's day. It's resolution would have been dreadful in comparison to film or HD.

[Fredxx]

The wiki article claims a 30p picture mode.

[John Rumm]

Something like:

(you may not like the price!)

[Fredxx]

There is this device: Pinnacle Studio MovieBox Video Input Adapter 510

But it's not cheap.

Best alternative is a Firewire PCI card for a desktop.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Well one assumes its analogue most of the way is it? I think you hit the nail squarely with the out of date formats its probably generating. Might be worth more as a kind of relic? Brian

[Fredxx]

To my knowledge this records video onto Mini DV tapes which are a digital format.

You can still get the tapes at £5-6 each for 60 minutes.

[Robert]

I wouldnt underestimate its value ! eBay suggests >£100 and yours is as new !

[newshound]

Isn't that the point? It is *a* digital format, but how much crunching will that need to get it to a modern format?

Personally, I'd stick it on eBay.

[Fredxx]

It will be uncompressed video. Compressing it is trivial with the various offering incorporating ffmpeg, even through VLC.

The camera may work very well in low light conditions.

[jon]

Looks promising though..

[newshound]

You say that as if it was a unique thing. The three CCD outputs will go into some sort of circuitry for merging but who knows what comes out of that. Almost certainly something both proprietary and obsolete. No doubt it would be possible to decode it and convert it to something useable, but I still don't think it would be easy.

Compressing it is trivial with the

Not strictly my field, but given the rate at which sensitivities have improved, I'd be astonished if a 20 year old CCD would outperform a modern CMOS.

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