What do you CHARGE??

[Wetmonkey]

alright, to all professional who offer video conversion or video editing services. ie. convert from VHS -> DVDR and or do full service.. take the actual footage, edit and author to DVDr. What are your going rates for these services. i have seen local drug stores who do photo work offer conversions from vhs to dvd for $29 for one disc. Anyone use this service? Iam trying to gauge what real pricing professionals are offering.. thanks everyone
..Drip Drip..
WETMONKEY

[jaxxboss]

I do it for free as long as it is of a couples honeymoon night. I'm such a nice guy

[fifer55]

well first off, this question is like asking a Professional authorist, compressionist, and or QC person how much they make, no one really says. why, not sure why, maybe because they are emberrassed of what they make, since the bottom of the dvd professional was removed when consumers starting offering "professional" services themselves, but that's a whole different issue. just like most people in the dvd field say "i make more friends than money".

as far as the $29 for a single disc, i imagine that they have a dvd-r recorder set top. all analog of course. with 20 dvd jobs at that price, they recorder will pay for itself, and since its a drug store, i imagine that they make their money on other products, so its just another thing.

i have seen dvd-r's of weddings, or sweet 16's (or in my case quinceneras), and i must say... it wasnt worth what the people paid for. they couldnt even handle extended play VHS's and they just did a S.A.T, and it looks horrible. what did they get charged: $300 for 1 lousy DVD-R!

i guess the bottom line is what equipment you have invested in, and how good you are(yes i feel that like anything, even IF you have the right equipment, it still takes a skill to do).

i have seen services offered for "professionally edited on a computer, then put onto dvd weddings/special events/etc." for prices ranging from $50 to whole packages upwards of $800.

if we're talking about like reels for professionals...thats again, a whole different issue.

just my .02..take it for what its worth

[northcat_8]

For a staight conversion, I typically charge $15-$35 depending on how many bells and whistles they want in it. You know if they just want the VHS tape put on DVD with some simple menus and chapter points...it's $15. If they are wanting something like a collage intro, sappy cut scenes like a picture or video of her with rose pedals floating down the screen...or other types of complex effects that I have to make then the price goes up.

I do sports highlight videos also and I charge them 2 different ways. First if the coach is just wanting the video made, I will usually just make the video and then the people buy them from me for $15 each. If the boosters or coach is wanting to use it as a fund raiser then I charge them around $25 an hour but not over $500. I know that sounds kind of steep but for a football team, with 65 players...65x20=1300 (almost every school in our area charges their players $20 for the highlight video). I prefer to just make the video and I take the orders for it than to do it the other way. I make more money, but more importantly I meet more people, who want other things done...which equals more business.

The cost is directly proportionate to how much original 3D art work and animation and special effects work they want.

But I always try to give them more than they expect. Like for one of the football teams, I took pictures of the Seniors when they were in peewee and I used them as textures on some 3D objects and put them on a football field which I had to make, put the camera inside a helmet and made an annimation that was like 1.5 minutes long...it took my computer....a 2.2 Ghz AMD, with 1 GB of PC2700 RAM....19 hours to render that annimation. BUT, it looked good, kids liked it, parents LOVED it (especially the mothers). I just try to put things in that they don't expect but they will like. Had I charged by hour to make that annimation the cost of that annimation alone would have been $475 at $25/hour...and it took a damn site more than 19 hours to make, let me tell you.


Jaxxboss ~

Believe it or not, I have done 2 home porns for people. They called and said "Well I have a video of questionable content...and I was wondering how much you would charge to put that on DVD for us...". Being that my mind is usually in the gutter anyway...I just leave it there, so when I loose it, I know where to find it......I knew what he meant and I told them $15 and I'll be damned if they didn't bring to me. The one woman is friends with my wife and the other one was a friend of hers.....I'm just waiting on the orgy video.... Seriously though, it was really odd, I wasn't really watching the video, like a porn video, I was looking at things like picture quality, lightness, darkness...you know...pretty strange....besides....it was a stationary camera....they need a videographer....

But the strangest thing I've done is memory videos that show during viewings at the funeral home. I still charge $15 as they are usually wanting a nice professional looking but no frills, looped slide show.



Something else I do is I keep a copy of every video I make incase they happen to scratch theirs or it breaks or something. I only charge $5.00 for a replacement copy but they have to have the original I sold them.

[pijetro]

Where did you learn all 'bout creating stills, and effects?? I'm familiar with Premiere, but have never had the time to learn Photoshop, or other similair software.
It would be nice, as you say, to be able to give people more than a few transitions.....
It's hard enough to find time and energy to devote to video, let alone dealing with stills...

[rhegedus]

I've seen the ads here in photo shops for VHS to DVD conversion - prices usually start at £30 ($45).

If it is a simple, no frills VHS to DVD conversion then about $15 (plus costs) sounds right. If they want menus and extras then I'd double the price. Of course, there should be room for discount it they're ordering multiple copies.

[energy80s]

I charge £10 an hour for my time, plus materials.

[northcat_8]

Where did you learn all 'bout creating stills, and effects?? I'm familiar with Premiere, but have never had the time to learn Photoshop, or other similair software.
It would be nice, as you say, to be able to give people more than a few transitions.....

I mainly taught myself. I downloaded a few tutorials from wrigleyvideo.com (now, that guy is good), those tutorials are on premiere but a few things are done in photoshop. And really what those did was make me think of things in a different light. I did learn things from him, but like I said, it mainly made me see things differently. Like instead of something being green, it's actually blue and red, instead of 6 it could be 2 x 3. Know what I mean? It changes the way you see things on TV too. Some of the special effects trasitions, etc. You know basically someone is just sitting at a computer making all of those things. Sportcenter is a great example of 3D modeling and after effects. I'm sure they use a little better program than Adobe but everything they do can be done with adobe.

Like my Avatar to the left, the picture under "northcat" I made that in photoshop and after effects from a simple picture of a flat disc. I skewed it to give it a slanted perspective look, copied it and put the 2nd copy under the first to give the 3D appearance, made the 2nd DVD chrome so the edge would look shinny, put the on the lightning in after effects (I had a new plugin, I could have done it with photoshop), the bright spot where the lightning hits the DVD is a lens flare and the flames are done with the Eye Candy plugin (which if you get photoshop, you can't be without Eye Candy). Now you can't see it in the Avatar but on the disc is a halogram with my business name on it.

All you have to do is think about things right and then figure out how to make that happen. For example, if you wanted to make that disc up there spin, instead of actually making the disc spin, make 3-4 copies of the original, put a black line or dot or whatever on the edge of the disc and on the 4 copies just put it in a different place kind of sequentially, blur the line other wise it will just look like a line moving around, but a directional blur will work. Then in your video editor just put those clips in a row and set the length of each pic to the desired time length to give you the speed look that you are wanting.

I'm pretty much a "by the seat of my pants" type. I can make just about anything if I set my mind to it, but I pretty much come up with what I want to do, and then figure out how to do it. I get some ideas from www.photoshopcontest.com, I don't enter their contests...I don't have time, and creativecow.com has some online tutorials to push me in the right direction if I get stuck.

I am a math teacher by trade and it's really like I tell my kids sometimes...you have a calculator, a book and an idea...figure it out. (the actual art of thought is lost in many of today's youth).

[jaxxboss]

northcat. ... LOL, thanks for the input, but I dont know if I wanna see my wife's friends doing it.... nope.. not at all.

You can do anything if you put your mind to it

...Hello McFly.

I guess to really charge the correct price you would have to know what the competition is charging then decide your break even poing after materials and then work up from min labor wage to see how much you would want to make per hour.

[northcat_8]

I dont know if I wanna see my wife's friends doing it....

I think that's one of the reasons my wife didn't have any problems with it

"things that make you go.....Ewwwwww"

Had it been a couple of her other friends, she wouldn't have been OK with it because she has 2 friends that are "Thank God I'm a man, HOT" just make you want to applaud God's work on those 2 women.