What is a fair price to charge?

[Touchdown]

I have a co-worker/friend who has 22 VHSc home video tapes that she would like converted to DVD.

I at first thought it was only a few and offered to do it for free. She insists on paying me and I'm not sure a fair price to charge.

Any thoughts?

[bugster]

Research what a commercial organistaion would charge for the same service and then halve it. She gets a good deal and you get a few $$$$'s

[tgpo]

My coworker does this. He suggests $20/hr of video.

[Will Hay]

My rate, for unedited, no menu, no chapter footage is £15/hr, or $28.50/hr........man, the dollar is low these days
However, for friends I charge £15 per tape, which seems to go down very well.
I couldn't sleep at night if I charged £15/hr to friends, but I won't do it for free, my hardware and time spent didn't come free.
Will

[tgpo]

I couldn't sleep at night if I charged £15/hr to friends, but I won't do it for free, my hardware and time spent didn't come free.

Nor should you do it for free. Even for friends. Friends means that you may go the extra mile for them, but remember that your time is always worth something, even for friends. I made the mistake of doing a website for a friend for free. I'm telling you, if you do something for free they will want 3 million revisions of your work. But if you charge them for each one, they will love the first version

[The village idiot]

VHSc are what 20 minutes each? Plus you need a special player or a playback adaptor. Just to add a little light to your pricing.

[curryman]

[quote]I'm telling you, if you do something for free they will want 3 million revisions of your work. But if you charge them for each one, they will love the first version[quote]

Never a true'r word spoken - just had a think back to all the times i've done favours for friends and get the reply "that's brilliant, but is there any chance you could just make the cover slightly brighter,bla!,bla!,bla!.
Maybe it's because i'm too soft or something but I never charge friends

[Touchdown]

VHSc are what 20 minutes each? Plus you need a special player or a playback adaptor. Just to add a little light to your pricing.

I didn't realize they were only 20 minutes each. She says she does have a playback adapter so she's shipping that to me.

I'm thinking of telling her $150.

Would be easier if it was a stranger. Hate charging friends for stuff, but this will take some time

[curryman]

The village idiot wrote:
VHSc are what 20 minutes each? Plus you need a special player or a playback adaptor. Just to add a little light to your pricing.

they're 45 mins I think.
The picture quality of vhsc is on par with my television arial pointing the totally opposite way to the transmitter so be warned it could very easily drop alot of frames and you'll end up with something unwatchable

[Will Hay]

I don't know whee this 20 minutes comes from, must be a US thing.
Mine were 45 mins.
Will

[Touchdown]

they're 45 mins I think.
The picture quality of vhsc is on par with my television arial pointing the totally opposite way to the transmitter so be warned it could very easily drop alot of frames and you'll end up with something unwatchable

Does anyone else have experience with transfering VHSc to DVD?

[Will Hay]

Yeah, I do.
Kinda why I have a VHS-C tape in my last post
Mine were great.
I captured mine using a £35 ATI Radeon 64mb DDR ViVo, edited with Pinnacle Studio 8 and the final disk was great.
I've since bought the Canopus ADVC-100 and thought about doing them all again.
Trust me, this stuff is important; the most important is footage of my son at only seven days old, you don't get much more important than that.
Having looked at the DVD's I won't bother, they're great as the are.
Will

[jeex]

i saw a flyer for walmart a couple of days ago. they'll transfer 2 hours of video to dvd for $20 (additional copies are $9).. i doubt there are menu's and all that other neat stuff.. but $20 is a pretty damn good price..

maybe i'll give them a PAL tape and see if they can convert it =)

i wonder if they use ac3 or pcm audio?

[stiltman]

I made the mistake of doing a website for a friend for free. I'm telling you, if you do something for free they will want 3 million revisions of your work. But if you charge them for each one, they will love the first version

[rant]
I'm in that boat right now....They said copy this site for our design...no problem it only took me a few hours to get their content in place. Then the revisions started coming...I figure I will give them a total of 40hrs worth of work before I say, enough is enough for free. I'll probably tick them off, but hey, how can they expect one weeks worth of free? Plus the site is only like 10 pages, but after 50 revisions it doesn't even look like the site they wanted me to copy in the first place.
[/rant]

[lordsmurf]

I transfer VHS-C and S-VHS-C a lot.

Fair price for 22 of those short tapes would be $220 US. Raw conversion to DVD, no real menu work at authoring stage.

Any work adds about $15 per hour on top of it.

You can give a friend discount of 25% ... something I do. Or waive the hourly charges if she wants nice custom menus or any kind of editing.

Plus this is a timely operation, give a 1-month estimate for that much work (understanding that this is free-time work you do).

[The village idiot]

Thanks for the correction, I haven't looked at a VHSc in about 7 years and seemed to remember them as much shorter.

[curryman]

Yeah, I do.
Kinda why I have a VHS-C tape in my last post
Mine were great.

OK then, I must of had a shit Camera.

[Will Hay]

Chicken tikka bhuna , Boiled Rice , Nan bread and one bag of chips please.
that will be £9.50 and it will be with you in 40 mins.
Cheers then, bye.

W.

[curryman]

curryman wrote:
Chicken tikka bhuna , Boiled Rice , Nan bread and one bag of chips please.
that will be £9.50 and it will be with you in 40 mins.
Cheers then, bye.

I Know I should go and pick it up but I get so tired in the evening

[Touchdown]

Just wanted to follow up with this post. I told her I could do them for $200 and it would take me 3-4 weeks. She agreed

[Will Hay]

You said 40 Mins, that was an hour and a half ago!

Stop it, you're killing me
Will

[MrMungus]

VHSc are what 20 minutes each? Plus you need a special player or a playback adaptor. Just to add a little light to your pricing.

I didn't realize they were only 20 minutes each. She says she does have a playback adapter so she's shipping that to me.

I'm thinking of telling her $150.

Would be easier if it was a stranger. Hate charging friends for stuff, but this will take some time

Maybe she wants to pay you so that you will get it done...