Retro Gear Time : Canon XL1 & Panasonic Lap-Top Editor

…tuoba si emiT raeG s’yadoT Whoops! Make sure your jog shuttle is set to play, not rewind! Nick and Dan talk about the a(DV)ent of DV, featuring the true Bad Boys of videography, the Panasonic Lap-Top editor, and the Canon XL1.

Welcome to Retro Gear time. Today, we have with us a small camera, a much larger camera, and a mysterious dark blue case… Let’s find out what all of these are!

       This smaller camera is the Canon XL1. When Canon came out with this camera in the late 90s, there were all these videographers with decades of experience and tens of thousands of dollars in camera equipment, and it gave them a run for their money. They may have been irritated with young aspiring cinematographers showing up on set with these cameras shooting behind the scenes or cutaway angles- maybe even as a second camera. You could also get some good-looking video by taking advantage of the capability for interchangeable lenses.

       What set the XL1 apart from other cameras at the time was that it was shooting digital video with the fairly new DV format, which looked pretty different from analog formats… which is what this huge, beastly Betacam camera here shot on. Then when the XL2 came out (which we also owned) it could shoot in 24p and 30p progressive, which looked even better. We had a whole collection of nice Canon lenses to use with these cameras, though I don’t know where they went!  Hard to believe I don’t have those in storage, too.

       With this XL1, we did some nice, cinematic-looking local TV commercials, corporate promotional videos, that sort of thing. Shooting video in ‘99 to ‘01, this was the camera to use. It really was a game-changer at around $5,000. This was what made the cost of entry into the video production business much lower for the young professional or the aspiring filmmaker.

       So, let’s get to this big briefcase next. This Panasonic Lap-Top editor was purchased for us by a client, and I bet if we could find the power supply for it it would still fire up. It used the DVC Pro format at a time when a lot of production was switching from beta SP to DV, and it was happening quickly. A conference videographer or live production news crew would use these with their setups to cut together a quick news package and upload it to the station. In just a couple of minutes, you could just tell a story by cutting this together, live on location. It was really amazing!  This DV format, along with DV Cam and DVC Pro, went a long way in terms of field production. This Panasonic Lap-Top editor was around $25,000 new in 2001

       People say I should get rid of this old gear hoard in my basement, there was something special about pushing the “in” and “out” key, and scrubbing through your tapes with the jog shuttle… So much fun!  Back in the day, this was state-of-the-art technology. That’s one thing that we’ve lost from using computers for everything: that tactile feel you get when editing with a jog wheel. It was satisfying, pushing that red button on the tape machine, and watching your edit spin up and play; knowing once you committed it to tape, that was that!  It was very difficult to go back and make a change, unless you have the exact length revision, because it was linear.

       This lap-top editor is little bit different than carrying a MacBook around. Perhaps that name is a little deceiving; nobody would have actually put this on their lap. It probably weighs 20 pounds. Not exactly built for comfort.

       Thanks for joining us again!  We have one more Retro Gear Time coming up next week. Stop in again to see it!