Canon GL2 - REVIEW AND TEST

[@POVwithRC]

Pretty much a masterclass in industrial and ergonomic design. It's probably important to archive old gear like this for future generations because things get forgotten if they aren't. Thanks for doing it.

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

Archiving these old cameras is one of the driving reasons for starting my channel. Thanks for watching.

[@tempfoot]

Great video! This was the best camera I could afford for making videos of my kids and family while they were young. Quality was so much better than less expensive single CCD consumer camcorders. I still have about 58 hours of captured video stored and all the original DV tapes. Managed to sell it before it became obsolete and I was moving on to HD digital.

[@kb8729]

Hi Dave, I have a boxed one of these in almost mint condition from 2004. It looks brand new. Nothing is made like this anymore, fact. The quality is incredible and the lens.

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

My GL2 came with the box, packaging and all the manuals and warranty cards as well. It’s sort of like a time capsule. The GL2 is an all around great camcorder. I hope to use mine more.

[@altdefcon]

hey, looking to buy one. are you from the usa?

[@ThBreadMan]

Always a good day when Dave posts a video

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

I appreciate that!

[@AlexRutiaga]

9:41 "You too will need a retro tech lab, and a secret storage locker your significant other wont know about to store all that awesome retro tech that you've been collecting for almost 30 years" This guys truly understand every retro tech collector out there

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

I mean, who doesn’t have a secret storage locker filled with retro tech?!?!

[@irondiver2034]

Thank you for this review. I wanted this camera so bad back in the day. It was extremely popular. Schools had it, colleges had them. Business used them to record events.

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

It’s a great all around camcorder. I’m not surprised so many individuals and organizations had them. If you look on ebay, there are so many GL2s for sale which further proves just how popular they were back in the day. Thanks for watching!

[@DimitriPapadopoulos1]

Great camera! I used the Canon GL2 extensively from 2002 to 2014 in Broadcast Television. Amazing picture quality for Standard Definition and feature-packed. Just like you, I recently acquired off eBay a boxed Canon GL2 in pristine condition. To answer your question: No, the DV format does not allow for true progressive recording, it's an interlaced format. The "Frame" mode it's essentially a Progressive segmented Frame (29.97PsF), and on the GL2, resolution takes a hit. Using the Widescreen mode also takes a hit on the resolution. For maximum quality shoot 4:3 interlaced (avoid Frame and/or Widescreen, and definitely not Frame+widescreen). PS. The GL2 is capable a much better output quality than those of your samples. You're obviously doing something wrong in the conversion or have a cheap capture device. Progressive segmented Frame (PsF, sF, SF) is a scheme designed to acquire, store, modify, and distribute progressive scan video using interlaced equipment. With PsF, a progressive frame is divided into two segments, with the odd lines in one segment and the even lines in the other segment. Technically, the segments are equivalent to interlaced fields, but unlike native interlaced video, there is no motion between the two fields that make up the video frame: both fields represent the same instant in time. This technique allows for a progressive picture to be processed through the same electronic circuitry that is used to store, process and route interlaced video. Wikipedia Ref: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_segmented_frame

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

Hey Dimitri, Thanks for the information. The GL2 Was in “normal” mode when I recorded the sample clips. I used a RetroTink 5x Pro to upscale the video and a Blackmagic Video Assist which records the clips as 4.2.2 HQ ProRes files. From the research I’ve done, the RetroTink and the BM Video Assist are very capable at getting the job done and neither are cheap. That all being said, as much as I really like the GL2, it doesn’t have the same level of details as say a broadcast ENG camera of that era and therefore will suffer a loss in quality when the video gets upscaled. Thanks for the technical backstory regarding the progressive frames issue. It was very informative and will help both me and other viewers understand the technical underpinnings on how that works. Thanks for watching!

[@ConsumerDV]

Hi, Dave! You production is more dense now, with nice inset shots of the camera! I liked the lens vertigo shot! A small quibble: DV camcorders do not record 525 lines of resolution. They record either 480 lines for NTSC or 576 lines for PAL. The two formats have long be commonly known as 525/60 and 625/50 respectively, which could be the reason for the confusion. The GL2 like most DV camcorders store video in an interlaced stream, so all progressive modes like 30p, 24p (for 60 Hz) and 25p (for 50 Hz) are stored using pulldown. I don't know whether the GL2 correctly flags frames as progressive instead of interlaced. Another issue with the GL2 frame mode is that, AFAIK, the sensors are natively interlaced. Twenty years ago many DV shooters questioned the usefulness of 30p: sure, you get film-like motion, but do you get a bump in vertical resolution? Later, when native progressive sensors became the norm, shooting progressive instead of interlaced would mean trading temporal resolution for spatial resolution, and for many it was a worthwhile deal.

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

Hey ConsumerDV, As always I appreciate the technical notes you contribute. I’m always learning something new. Thanks for the kudos regarding the camera coverage. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I had to open the lab to get a “few extra shots”. That went on for two weeks. As always, thanks for watching.

[@musiclovercecil7845]

From my understanding, 60i is the base framerate for DV, so in order to record 30p. it will have a pulldown. The Canon XL2 goes even further than the GL2 with the option for 24p, with the option of doing a 2:3 frame pulldown or a 2:3:3:2 method to accomplish 24p in the framework of 60i.

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

I believe there are consumer DV cameras with a true 24p frame rate. Was the Panasonic DVX-100 one of those cams?

[@b2rad]

I always loved this camera, but never owned it. I had a Sony VX1000 back in the day, but other folks in my circle had this one for recording skateboarding. Memories of the past! Crazy looking back on this vs my new Sony hybrid camera now. I remember when we moved away from the "handycam" look and into a more modern camera body look, it was weird for me at first. I just love camera and video technology.

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

I too owned a 'VX1000 and got plenty of mileage out of it. I remember the Canon GL1 and '2 always being the skateboarder kids' camera of choice, however. Especially with the big ol' century optics fisheye lens adapter. Thanks for watching!

[@bikelifewithalex120]

This camera and the Sony Vx1000/vx2100 were my top desired camera at the time. I used to go over to Micro-Center to get my hands on this puppy while I drooled over it. Finally got one in 2021 for about $65 over the original $2100 or so. Great little camera that I will keep forever. Looking for a Gl1 too

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

They’re all great cameras. I purchased a VX1000 and the 2100 when they were both initially introduced. I wish I held onto my vx1000.

[@JeffGeerling]

I used a GL1 and XL1 for some media production early in my career before I got into software. The GL2 fixed a few of the annoying quirks of the GL1, wish I could've afforded one!

[@paulatichi2232]

Can GL2 be used for livestreaming? And if yes, what's the connection

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

I must admit, I'm not an expert in live streaming. Is there an SD streaming gear available to buy today? I'm not sure, but if I had to take what I have in the lab right now and livestream with my GL2, I would probably grab my RetroTink 5x Pro and use that to upscale the GL2's SD video to HD and pipe that into my streaming hardware.

[@craigw.scribner6490]

Thanks, Dave. I bought a brand new Canon GL1 in 2000 and used it for many years, until the heads wore out and I moved up to a Canon XHA1S.

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

The GL1 was a real workhorse of a camcorder. As evidenced by their abundance on eBay, they were quite popular for that reason. Thanks for watching.

[@CycloneCordVHS]

8:31 the fact that I've had one for over 2 years and it needs to be repaired haha

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

😬

[@bobbiojoseph5547]

NIce video Dave....

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

Thanks Bobbio'! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[@chrisw443]

Damn, gotta buy another camera now! Lol I used this in college, it was the backup camera no one wanted in 2012. Tape was pretty much dead then.

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

Hey Chris, There are seemingly hundreds of these cameras for sale on ebay. It's a good vintage workhouse that will most likely function just fine after 20-plus years. Don't forget to purchase a wide-angle lens adapter for the camera. You will definitely need one.

[@KylesDigitalLab]

LMAO 9:05 I'm in the background hahaha

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

Hey Kyle, I just realized that. Too funny.

[@DelCampoProductions.]

Awesome! (Edit) Would you ever try to buy a Cinema film camera? Maybe an Ari flex or something of that category would be splendid.

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

The camera is nice and clean. 'Works quite well.

[@DelCampoProductions.]

@@davesretrovideolab2709 great! As your first subscriber aka Ruben, I’m honored to be able to view these fine videos of tech from yesteryear.

[@gfxkidfilms]

Got to get one of these !!! I’m on a work trip all the way in Switzerland watching this. Now I’m looking thru ebay for one 😂

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

Go for it!

[@kb8729]

I have a boxed one in near mint condition

[@lanatrzczka]

Hi, does steadyshot work in 16x9 or is that restricted to 4:3 like the more consumer cameras of the time?

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

The instruction manual does not specify. Just generalizes the functionality so I’m assuming it’s for both.

[@einfach.Brunoo]

Hey I got this camera about 2 months ago and everything worked fine. But now the tape deck seems to be broken and it wont record anymore. Do you have any experience reparing or opening these cameras?

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

Unfortunately, I don’t have experience fixing cameras. I have a friend, out of Chicago, who might be able to help. Email me at [e-mail] for more info.

[@moritzanselm2803]

this one is a beauty

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

It's a reliable camcorder, which is nice to come across once in a while.

[@jodyb1095]

This channel is awesome.

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

I’m glad you like the channel. Thanks for watching.

[@UrbanJerseyGuy]

Love the show, for the output quality you should be able to get a bit more clarity by importing the video without converting to analog first. I'm sure you know this, just when we see old skate videos on this thing which it was commonly used for, you can see some really great quality. Like a well mastered DVD

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

Hey UJG, Ahhh the old skate videos are very cool and very well done indeed. That being said, the kids who shot the those videos didn't have to face a few obstacles, which I'm dealing with currently. First off, I need to upscale my SD videos to 1080p for my channel. Second, I don't have a way to tap into the firewire coming out of the camera. Maybe I can get an old computer, with firewire connectivity and a video capable capturing HDD, and ingest the video that way?? Then I could maybe use a software upscaler to scale up the SD to HD video? Here's a few thoughts about why I maybe choose the analog path for converting my videos. If I record the video via firewire, the video will be highly compressed. Then I put that highly compressed video into a software upscaler which will re-compress the already highly compressed video. Then I have to wonder, what will the quality be like after going though all that compression. Of course all that gets recompress when the episode (The upscaled video is seen within) is rendered and uploaded to KZbin. My current workflow now is to tap the s-video out of the camera and run the outgoing video through a RetroTink 5x Pro upscaler. The upscaled video is recorded as an Apple ProRes HQ via a Black Magic Video assist recorder. I know there are AI upscalers out there which I probably should be using, but I haven't gotten there yet. Thanks for watching and I appreciate the input. It helps me to think about why I do things the way I do. I'm sure there are those retro-tech friends who can help achieve better quality with my upscaled videos.

[@UrbanJerseyGuy]

@@davesretrovideolab2709 Not saying you need to grab the raw DV output via firewire but if you do continue to dip into DV it would be a nice to have. The DV spec is roughly 2x the bitrate of a DVD (25Mbps) and all video in most DV cams will convert then compress to the DV standard, any analog output will then be another lossy conversion, most notably in the color as the DV video should be 720×480 4:1:1 w/ 8bit chroma & luma. The easiest solution would be to get a Firewire 400 capture card for your recording computer and have a DV recording program capture the video off the cam. If you ever did run across a cheap DV hard drive recording solution you could then pipe your saved videos you shot in the field directly to your computer with this solution. As for upscaling, any modern codec shouldn't do too much damage to the (MPEG-2?) encoded video from the DV cam. I use Divinci Resolve and its upscaling is pretty good sans AI, I also have Topaz for AI upscaling but its hit or miss depending on how compressed the video is. Cheers, keep up the good work.

[@alexss3]

​@@davesretrovideolab2709 first off, awesome channel, I'm so happy I discovered it and you deserve way more subscribers. I've been collecting DV, HDV, and HD camcorders the past couple years so I've also tinkered with options to ingest the footage in almost the same way you have (I also have the Retrotink 5x and a Video Assist), but I also got a cheap firewire pci card for my PC which lets me connect the cameras directly with the IEEE port. There are a couple options for importing DV footage in Windows, some better than others. WinDV is very popular as a free option, but I've had my share of annoyances with it. There is also VirtualDub, but with that comes a rabbit hole. If you can dig up an older copy of Adobe Premiere, it can import DV footage directly, but of course export formats are definitely outdated, however it's fun to pretend to live in that era again. I'm currently in the process of experimenting with a DVD/HDD recorder, just waiting on a 4pin/4pin fireware cable. The one I have has HDMI output and upscales any input source, including DV! From that I will try recording directly to the Video Assist in ProRes, but I'm afraid there might be some HDCP from the unit. I do have an HDMI splitter which might help strip the copy protection if any exists. As for upscaling SD to HD, you can look at Topaz Labs' Video AI. It's a bit pricey but it is incredible what it can do. It can feel a bit like cheating sometimes if you're goal is to try to represent what the camera was capable of and not what software can turn it into. P.S. Hoping to get a GL2 one of these days to add to the collection. Currently have a Canon XL1, Sony DCR-PD100AP, Sony HVR-Z1U, Panasonic DVX-100, Panasonic HMC41E, and various small handheld camcorders. The prices I paid for those range from free to just a couple hundred dollars :)

[@bencarotenuto2261]

If you capture via the camera's firewire port to your computer in DV format, the resulting file will be a bit-for-bit perfect copy of the video straight off of the DV tape. Running that through something like a YADIF de-interlacing filter and upscaling to 1080 should give you excellent quality​

[@Pasi123]

@@davesretrovideolab2709 Using the analog output instead of using firewire to digitally transfer the footage definitely destroyed the quality. It looks way worse than what digitally copying the footage would look like, because MiniDV is digital you get an exact copy of the footage with zero loss in quality when copying over firewire. DV footage has decent bitrate for standard definition and since it's like that on the tape you don't gain any additional bitrate using analog capture device. MiniDV tape holds around 12GB of data. You should definitely use firewire and then use QTGMC for deinterlacing the footage, after that you can upscale it to 1080p. I don't have a GL2 but here's Sony HC96 footage with that method: ZG0y9uohFYk and from a way worse Samsung VP-D362: qqjPnpGihfY If you have a desktop PC you could buy a PCIe firewire card and if you don't then you could buy some old workstation PC like a HP Z420 and then use WinDV program to capture the footage (it still works on Windows 10). Many laptops also had firewire but most of them didn't have USB 3.0, though if you transfer the footage over the network to a NAS or something then USB 3.0 probably isn't required.

[@icespeaker81]

Just got this from a family member. I don't know shit about cameras, so this was a big help.

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

I’m glad my video was so helpful.

[@cikmatt]

Shirts for sale..?

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

Hey cikmatt, I'm casually working on that idea as we speak. The biggest issue is cost per shirt. I order the shirts as I need them from Vista Print or Rush-Order-Tees, and I pay a premium for each shirt. I need to get the cost way down before I can offer them to the public. If you or anyone out there knows of a good way to distribute the shirts, I would greatly appreciate any advice you can provide. Thanks!

[@7000DASH]

Wait only 10 photos on sd card?

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

Yes, I believe that’s what the manual said.

[@74360CUDA]

It takes a very small card

[@74360CUDA]

I find converting directly to HD hurts the quality of the picture. HD sharpens the lines and makes them more visible in my opinion. My videos look better when I use Windows Movie Maker to make the digital recording. WIth WMM you can completely control the operation of the camera from the computer and record a nice 480p picture that is a little "fuzzy" but does not highlight every line and artifact that HD does, especially good when recording digital from an old tape. If the camera is not in perfect condition and may have a button or two broken you can still control the camera from the computer keyboard with WMM giving broken cameras a new lease. Last, with Windows Movie Maker there is no need to stretch or unstrech the video input because WMM records the exact picture coming from the camera without distortion. WMM works best with Windows 7, it does also work with Windows 10 but may crash from time to time. It's an old program so it works with Win 98, XP and VIsta also. An older computer with WIn7, a DV input, updated with an SSD and 4GB of RAM works best but DVI hookups may not be necessary. Some of the latest mini DV cameras (late 2000s) can output rolling video to WMM through the USB mini port. I don't think Canon ever made a GL2 that could do that though. DV is the way to go for this GL2 camera IMO. DV, IEEE or Firewire are all the same.

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

I’ll give that a try. Thanks!

[@STGFilmmakers]

2:23

[@DelCampoProductions.]

Hey Dave! Just wanted to give you a heads up, I will be changing my channel name to TexasmadeBull. -Ruben

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

Hey Ruben! Thanks for the head up! Is this name change #3? Thanks for being such a big fan of the show. 😃

[@DelCampoProductions.]

@@davesretrovideolab2709 Hehe, it is number 3, and I’m Honored to be able to view such fine technology!

[@retropalooza]

Got a serious Mr wizard vibe going on here ....is this 2002 Nickelodeon

[@davesretrovideolab2709]

It's all about the lab coat. :)

[@retropalooza]

@@davesretrovideolab2709 could be

[@retropalooza]

@@davesretrovideolab2709 sell em, I'll buy one

[@photojunkysdronezonevlog]

I tested this camera about 5 years ago and really liked the effect. It gives you that nostalgic feel. My daughter still uses the one I gave her to this day. It was a great camera and its time and definitely a useful tool to have around if you are into shooting old looking videos. I used a cheap device to record directly onto a hard drive and bypassed the tape. kzbin.info/www/bejne/f3Wyf2mVm96AfMUsi=A7NFaaQKxRAXeX8Y In the video below, I show you how to use a cheap external hard drive to record video directly onto it from these old cameras. kzbin.info/www/bejne/d5i5gJiomLuNm8ksi=8AgL69cumIDKcaQQ