How much I should charge ?

[gsashok]

How much I should charge ?

To conver 60 min

DV/DVD/VHS/Hi-8 to VCD -
DV/DVD/VHS/Hi-8 to SVCD -
DV/DVD/VHS/Hi-8 to miniDVD -
Photos(gif/jpg/bmp) to PHOTO VCD -
Photos(gif/jpg/bmp) to PHOTO SVCD -
Photos(gif/jpg/bmp) to PHOTO miniDVD -
to Scan one photo -

Help needed please. I wanty to do small business in case if I get laid off (in this down economy I should make some arrangement right?)

[baker]

good question.

[91BRAVO]

I would call your local "Professional Photo Lab" and get prices from them then charge 75% of what they do and people will be knocking down your door.

Prices for services differ by country, region and city so just compare.

[zzyzzx]

When you asked how much to charge, I immediately thought of this:




<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: zzyzzx on 2001-11-30 13:55:57 ]</font>

[mikewg]

Man Whore... that's funny.

[patrickm]

well, a lot depends on your hardware. the more computers you have to do this, the more flexible you can make pricing. say you have a computer that captures AVIs and encodes, and one with a realtime hardware MPEG card. charge a higher price for 'next day' or '4 hour' service or whatever seems to be a reasonable timreframe for the fast one, and a lower price for the other one that'll take a couple days. also factor in the cost of replacing your cd burner if you have to work it too hard, etc...

and make sure if you're doing this as a business, that you're not converting copyrighted dvds or vhs. i doubt the movie industry would care if you copied your own dvd of 'forest gump' once, but when you begin selling them for profit, it becomes trivially easy for them to prove infringement and a tangible loss.

but i still think there's lots of people that would want legitimate, legal things converted, like home movies of the kids, their wedding videos, or shows they tape off tv (that's a tricky one, but the fair-use principles probably apply if you're only charging for labor/materials there)

[kinneera]

A word of warning...I would be careful with the DVD-to-anything conversion. I can't think of any situation where that would be legal, courtesty of everyone's favorite DMCA. Advertising that as a service could get the wrong kind of people knocking on your door.

[challer]

Here in Ohio, Walgreen's had a coupon in the paper for $5 off their usual cost of US$34.99 for transfer of 2 hours videotape to DVD (with chapters).

Go to http://www.Yesvideo.com toread about it.

That's a low cost to beat considering the media is going to be US$6-10.

[Greg12]

DVD-To neything- EVIL

Neything to DVD-Good.

for fansubs of anime, the standard price seems to be $8 a tape.

[VCDsMakeMoney]

To convert 60 min

DV/DVD/VHS/Hi-8 to VCD - $20
DV/DVD/VHS/Hi-8 to SVCD - $25
DV/DVD/VHS/Hi-8 to miniDVD - $30
Photos(gif/jpg/bmp) to PHOTO VCD - $10
Photos(gif/jpg/bmp) to PHOTO SVCD - $15
Photos(gif/jpg/bmp) to PHOTO miniDVD - $20
to Scan one photo - $.25 - $.75

These prices might seem low,but once they see that you can do this,and at these prices,they'll keep coming back,and probably refer you to their friend's and other family members.Now multiply this by the number of customer's and that's alot of referrals.

[patrickm]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-11-30 15:22:06, kinneera wrote:
A word of warning...I would be careful with the DVD-to-anything conversion. I can't think of any situation where that would be legal, courtesty of everyone's favorite DMCA. Advertising that as a service could get the wrong kind of people knocking on your door.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

well, the situations that i'd think of were
1) family does one of those vhs->DVD things for $99, and doesn't want to pay exorbitant prices for another one, or has a dvd player that won't play the dvd-r
2)small businesses using the dvd's/dvd-r's for promotions, who want to reach a broader audience
(though if they're making dvd-r's themselves, they probably have the know-how to do svcd or vcd, but you never know)

but yes, be careful in your ads about sounding like you'd copy real movies or anything.