The Canon GL1 has three CCDs, delivering outstanding picture quality, highly accurate color reproduction and a wide dynamic range with virtually no color noise. On top of that, Canon uses a broadcast technology called Pixel Shift to produce greater picture quality than that of camcorders using CCDs with almost twice the number of pixels.
Advantages Over Single CCD
Why use three smaller CCD image sensors in the GL1 instead of one large CCD? The GL1 maximizes the capability of the DV format by using three CCDs. Each CCD is assigned to handle one of three primary colors: Red, Green and Blue. A beam splitting prism precisely separates the light passing through the lens into individual color components, and each is sent to its own CCD.
The use of the three CCDs allows Canon to employ Pixel Shift technology to extract the maximum picture detail from the video signal. The process achieves outstanding picture detail, highly accurate color reproduction, wide dynamic range and virtually no color noise.
Using three CCDs also allows the GL1 to achieve resolution equal to camcorders with nearly twice as many pixels. And, because there are fewer pixels on each of the three CCDs, the pixels are larger in size and thereby gather more light. The result is improved dynamic range where detail is clearly visible in highlights and shadows without annoying color noise.
In the GL1, Canon uses Pixel Shift, a signal processing method used in broadcast TV cameras, to exceed the overall picture quality achieved by camcorders using nearly twice as many pixels.
With the light coming into the camcorder split into three color components, each of the three CCDs then handles one of three primary colors: Red, Green and Blue. The green component of a video signal contains 60% of the picture detail, and the red and blue components only 40%. The green CCD in the GL1 is shifted the equivalent distance of 1/2 pixel from the red and blue CCD. The green signal is then sampled more frequently to extract the maximum picture detail from the video signal.
In addition to outstanding clarity and natural color, Pixel Shift provides wider dynamic range, reduced vertical smear from bright light sources and sharper still images.
Super High Resolution
There are 270,000 pixels on each of the three CCD image sensors in the GL1. Using Pixel Shift technology, the GL1 rivals the resolution of camcorders using CCDs with 410,000 pixels.