Video as Home Base Bussiness???

[sacajaweeda]

I agree you would problably pass on it (us). That's okay. We are not for everybody. In fact, we have a very strict approval process so it is also possible that we would pass on you (or anybody for that matter).

It has a cost of $130,000 a royalty of 9% and a 2% for something else.

I have a hard time believing you would say no to any fool that came down the pike with 130k in hand.

We rarely sell to established video professionals

I'm sure.

[Rob@homeVideoStudio]

I have a hard time believing you would say no to any fool that came down the pike with 130k in hand.

[/quote]

Yep, we turn all fools away!

[lordsmurf]

In all honesty, I can't believe people would be this stupid to fork over $130,000 for a no-name company.

Comparing yourself to McDonald's or Subway is also a huge joke.

I've seen these sort of psuedo-scams before. They really give you some degree of service/product, but you're not getting anything special. I remember Guthy-Renker used to have these types of things all the time, where you'd pay them $10,000 for a "lifetime URL" (choicemall.com/yourname) and they'd give you a crappy cgi shopping cart, and a training "seminar" (which really was terrible, totally worthless information). GR used to go into all this crap about how they were this big impressive company, blah blah blah.

This sort of snake-oil selling is as old as prostitution.

Pay me $130,000 and you can have my brand. I'll buy you some equipment, and I'll even fly to your North American address and teach you in person for 2-3 weeks. As an extra added benefit, I won't insult your intelligence with marketing BS and ridiculous guarantees. No royalties, one time payment. I'm serious. For $130,000, I'll quit my days of video consulting and transfer/editing services.

[Rob@homeVideoStudio]

In all honesty, I can't believe people would be this stupid to fork over $130,000 for a no-name company.

Comparing yourself to McDonald's or Subway is also a huge joke.

I've seen these sort of psuedo-scams before. They really give you some degree of service/product, but you're not getting anything special. I remember Guthy-Renker used to have these types of things all the time, where you'd pay them $10,000 for a "lifetime URL" (choicemall.com/yourname) and they'd give you a crappy cgi shopping cart, and a training "seminar" (which really was terrible, totally worthless information). GR used to go into all this crap about how they were this big impressive company, blah blah blah.

This sort of snake-oil selling is as old as prostitution.

Pay me $130,000 and you can have my brand. I'll buy you some equipment, and I'll even fly to your North American address and teach you in person for 2-3 weeks. As an extra added benefit, I won't insult your intelligence with marketing BS and ridiculous guarantees. No royalties, one time payment. I'm serious. For $130,000, I'll quit my days of video consulting and transfer/editing services.
_________________

I remember back in the day.... when the internet was very young, I used to visit a forum or two. Now I remember why I quit. Most members of any forum, whether it be one on gardening or video, are great people interested in the topic. Some are like you. They shoot their "mouth" off, talking about something that they know little about. BTW, we make no guarantees.

[lordsmurf]

They've already ripped this "company" a new one at Wrigley Video and at DV Info:

http://www.wrigleyvideo.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=12171

Looks to me like a real scam. The figure of $100,000 is pretty standard for starting a franchise business. That is, you pay the corporation, and they give you a franachise license, training, startup materials, etc.

In this case, it looks like you pay $100,000 for maybe $20,000 worth of equipment (who knows?), you get a bunch of gobbledygook "marketing materials", some training, and some web space.

Maybe I'll send for the free info packet just for kicks. I wouldn't trust this site very far considering the crucial information they lack in the opening sales pitch.

It does seem suspicious that there is no list anywhere on the website of what you receive for $99,900.

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:lDUXYVc5JFcJ:dvinfo.net/conf/archive/index.php/t-...lnk&cd=2&gl=us

Here's another little gem: <<<He shot on both coasts on 16mm, 35mm, Panavision™, and æ” and Betacam™ video.>>>

Both coasts...HOLY MACKEREL! I wonder why he's avoided the middle of the country?

I guess they don't know that 35mm and Panavision are the same things! Panavision just happens to be a different camera system like Arriflex or MovieCam. And let's not forget "Betacam video"...is there any other BetaCam that I am not aware of?

I also like the fact that they are all holding and surrounded by an award that he named after himself!

If you can't dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your bullsh*t!

It's pretty clear that this guy dropped out of college before he actually understood video. His money comes from taking money from morons. Are you willing to be next?

[lordsmurf]

I remember back in the day.... when the internet was very young, I used to visit a forum or two. Now I remember why I quit. Most members of any forum, whether it be one on gardening or video, are great people interested in the topic. Some are like you. They shoot their "mouth" off, talking about something that they know little about. BTW, we make no guarantees.

What a ******* liar.

Internet forums are relatively young, as compared to the World Wide Web part of the Internet. If you had actually been online, you might know some of this. The only thing that really existed back then was bulletin boards (BBS, cgi-based UBB) or newsgroups (alt.*).

But of course, much like video, you're full of shit.

Peddle your video scam elsewhere.

[gadgetguy]

I decided to visit the website and investigate this "opportunity" before offering further comment. Every one of the "profit centers" are regularly discussed and all but one can be learned here, for free. The only one on his list that requires specialized equipment is Film Transfer and you have to send the film to him to get it transferred, so your $100000+ doesn't even buy that. I think this falls firmly into the "Legal Scam" category, in that it doesn't violate any laws, but it preys on the ignorance of the target audience.

[thecoalman]

Comparing yourself to McDonald's or Subway is also a huge joke.

I'd have to agree 100%, as I mentioned above the biggest advantage of a franchise is name recognition. I can know nothing about burgers or making subs and set up McDonald's or Subway at a half decent location and expect to make some some money. You have the brand name recognition.

The only one on his list that requires specialized equipment is Film Transfer and you have to send the film to him to get it transferred, so your $100000+ doesn't even buy that.

Pay him to transfer? Must have to because the franchise fee is not going to cover it if you send him 8000 hours of material. BJ_M has posted some links for telecine machines that were in the $2000- $10000 range and if you know how he is with his nonchalant "well I ran it though this $megabucks software"you can assume they were decent pieces of equipment.

----------------------------------------

Rob@homeVideoStudio,

Convince me this package is worth it and I'll write the check today, what specific video equipment do you get for more than $100,000. I'm not talking about the paraphernalia but the hard core assets, computer? Real time editing card like matrox? Cams? Monitors? VCR's? VTR's? Software? What does it come with? If you're so confident it's worth it give us a list with specifics so we can evaluate it.


If not:

[thecoalman]

Well I decided to go shopping with 140K to see what I could come up with.
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***Note prices include any rebates


To start off with we obviuosly need some cams so I went with 3 full retail versions of the
Canon XL2's for a suprisingly low price of $3100. Everthing you need to actually
use the cam except a bag to carry it in. (we'll get to accessories in moment)

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/339002-REG/Canon_9549A001_XL_2_1_3_Inch_3_CCD_Widescreen.html

Sub Total: $9300
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In addition we'll throw in 2 full retail versions of the Canon GL2's at a cost of $1750 each

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/255811-REG/Canon_7920A001_Canon_GL2_Mini_DV.html

Sub Total: $3500
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Camera Accesories, not going to go into deatail here because it would take too long but I'll suugest
what I think woiuld be an estimated price for some decent equipment from what I've looked at.
need a few lenses, some tripods, bags, batteries, microphones.

Lenses, we can absolutely nuts here but we'll start with a conservative budget of $15,000. That will
give us a nice start with at least 7 or 8 decent Canon lenses.

Tripods and, again we can go nuts but we'll be conservative and set $10,000 budget for this. That should get
us one good tripod at about $3k, 2 cheaper ones for $1K, 2 cheaper ones yet at $500. That leaves $4000
for stabilizers, shoulder mounts, mini tripod etc.

Batteries, I paid $50 for a 6 hour battery, we need at least two per cam. That's $500

Cases 3 $500 hard cases for the XL2's and 3 $300 soft cases.
That's $2400

Microphones, $500 a piece x6 for mounting on the cams, 3 wirless ones $500 each, Studio mics $500x3

Lighting, $5000

$10,000 for various items like a few mini monitors, portable mixing board and anything I missed.

$15,000 for lenses
$10,000 for tripods
$10,000 for Misc Camera equipment
$5000 for lighting
$6000 for mics
$2400 for cases
$500 for batteries


Sub Total: $49000
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Sub Total: $9300 3 Canon XL2's
Sub Total: $3500 2 Canon GL2's
Sub Total: $49000 Cam Accecories

Total For Cams and Accesories: $61800

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Matrox Axio HD

• Makes Adobe Premiere Pro the foremost HD and SD editor for broadcast and post
• Guaranteed full quality, full frame rate, full resolution playback at up to 1080i at 29.97 fps
• At least 2 layers of uncompressed 10-bit HD video plus 2 layers of graphics in real time, with effects
• At least 4 layers of uncompressed 10-bit SD video plus 6 layers of graphics in real time, with effects
• Realtime primary and secondary color correction with shot-to-shot color matching
• Realtime 3D DVEs, chroma/luma keying, speed changes, blur/glow/soft focus, and much more
• Uncompressed 8- or 10-bit HD and SD editing
• Compressed HD editing (offline and online finishing-quality MPEG-2 I-frame)
• DV, DVCPRO, DV50, and MPEG-2 I-frame SD editing
• 24 fps editing in HD and SD with pull down and reverse pull down
• DV-1394, SD SDI, and HD SDI input and output
• RGB and YPbPr analog component output
• 4-in/8-out AES/EBU balanced audio, 8-in/8-out SDI embedded audio

Includes: Axio hardware, HD & SD breakout boxes, and Adobe Collection (Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5, Encore, Audition and After Effects Standard 6.5)

What would a complete Axio HD system cost from DV411?
SD configurations start at $20K, HD - at $30K, as they need a faster system and a much faster array. You ask, what's a "really fast system"? For 2007, it's a dual-quad Xeon workstation (dual Intel Xeon processors, each with 4 "cores", or "quad-core") with 2 to 4 GB of RAM and one of the latest high-end graphics cards with at least 512MB of its own RAM. Such systems run from $5 to $9K.
The disk array for Axio HD must be capable of reading at least two 10-bit HD streams in real time. Usually, these will need to have a stand-alone chassis with an independent (and fast) RAID controller, 4Gbit Fibre-Channel interface, at least 12 drives in a RAID0 or RAID3 configuration. Depending on capacity, these mammoths run $10K and up.
On top of it, you will also need a decent studio reference monitor with HD-SDI inputs that can natively display 1080 HD signal. One such monitor is JVC DT-V24L1DU, and it costs over $4K.

http://dv411.com/axiohd.html

We only need the SD configutation so we'll go with $20K, As best I can tell the SD and HD systems are identical except there's an additional breakout box that comes with HD version. Plus you need the faster computer to run it. If need be we could always upgrade to HD.

$20k Workstation & Software:
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2 Additional computers with older real time editing cards 2x$3000

2 cheapo computers for 2x$800

$6K Additional computers
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Total For Computers: $27600

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1x $5000 professional DV deck
2x $1500 Decks with VHS, Mini-DV,CD/DVD and hardrives


Need some analog equipment, gotta start making some money quickly to pay for
all this. Analog conversions is cheap and fast.In case we get swamped with a bunch of
"convert and burn stuff" we might as well be ready for it:

1x $3000 Professional TBC with proc amp
2x $350 JVC 9111 (if you can find one and no you can't have mine )
2x $350 DataVideo TBC's
2x $250 ADVC 110's
2x $300 DVD Recorders

$2000 for misc items like cables.

Total For Decks and analog: $14000

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Telecine machine :

We'll get the most expensive one, $7295.00
http://www.moviestuff.tv/sniper_series.html


Hmmm what am I'm missing.......Monitors another $10000 (might as well get giant screen for playing Doom while we are waiting to start money)


Throw in another $20,000 for miscellaneous items, Good DSLR Camera, DVD duplicator, beer, scanners, maybe get nice automated negative/slide scanner, desks, chairs, racks, sound system etc etc..

Grand Total: $140,695



That's quite a bit of high end electronics and more than enough to keep 5 or 6 people busy all day, would love to see how your list compares to that.

[thecoalman]

Sorry I keep finding more, from the faq on his site. Went there to find a list.. anyhow:

.....We use Apple Final Cut Pro, Motion and Soundtrack as some of the fantastic programs available. The analogy I make in using a PC is like trying to type with boxing gloves on. Using an Apple computer is like take a hot knife and slicing through butter......

:P

Every time Sony, Panasonic, Apple or Microsoft comes out with a new format, we make more money because we help people change those formats. And we love to help them change these things.

I'm assuming you don't realize there is generational loss in every conversion?

It's best that you stick with our equipment packages. It's a turnkey system that's totally integrated with the latest version of both equipment and software. So, we don't allow you to use your own equipment.

Don't allow?


Damn I think I've been brainwashed after reading that, sounds like a cult.

[lordsmurf]

Not another Apple-is-best retard. Cult, indeed!

The only thing missing in your budget, coalman, is educational training and books. Weekend seminars, classes at a local college (community or otherwise), and webinars are suggested. That would probably run a good $10k, maybe $15k at most. It would also take a good year to complete.

That's another lie this "franchise" espouses, that everything can be learned merely by giving money and having a quickie seminar at Disney World. Talk about blowing sunshine up your ass.

You've also gone into shooter land, and this company seems to mostly be about conversion and editing. I don't recall anything being there on shooting. That's a skill in itself, and you cannot be trained to shoot video (or stills)... you may learn how to operate a camera, but to truly capture moments on film, you require a gift that cannot be taught.

[thecoalman]

The only thing missing in your budget, coalman, is educational training and books. Weekend seminars, classes at a local college (community or otherwise), and webinars are suggested. That would probably run a good $10k, maybe $15k at most. It would also take a good year to complete.

My idea was to set down the basics to keep many people busy. As i said that's enough to keep 6 busy, actually if you had all 5 cams going every day you keep more like 10 or 12 busy with it. If we wanted to only set up up for two person business with one or two part timers for shooting, we could skim that list and get rid of lot of stuff. Went a little overboard on the mics and tripods too :P , the stock mics work pretty good on the GL2 I'm sure the XL2's are that much better, Maybe 1 or two specialized mics instead.

Now that i think about it the telecine machines for the other formats might be a good investment too. There's statrup costs such as a few months rents and advertising, maybe a website etc. There's certainly a lot of things we could take out of there to cover those costs, the only thing in that list that is absolute must is the beer .

You've also gone into shooter land, and this company seems to mostly be about conversion and editing. I don't recall anything being there on shooting. That's a skill in itself, and you cannot be trained to shoot video (or stills)... you may learn how to operate a camera, but to truly capture moments on film, you require a gift that cannot be taught.

He does mention tripods on his website... :P One of the few mentions of equipment. Anyhow I don't forsee making money on conversion/editing alone. You're going to need to do at least one wedding or other large event a week. As far as the being able to operate the camera deal I couldn't agree more, if given the choice between a relative of mine who has formal training and lots of expensive gear including a Canon 1D DSLR or my ex-girlfriend and her $300 Sony cybershot I'd pick her everytime. You either have it or don't.

[MackemX]

I'm happy with my £50 Samsung D900 3.15 Megapixel camera from fleaBay with a 1GB memory card to record high quality movies



p.s. it's amazing what quality you get in the bedroom :P

[thecoalman]

to record high quality movies

I think I'll stick with my GL2 at the moment. It is amazing what they are packing into devices today, My uncle has one of the original handheld electronic calculators that is probably as big as that because it had to be.. I'd imagine shortly the only issue is going to be lenses which is a pretty big issue. AFAIK at the moment there's no replacement for glass except for censor size/MP's and if you wanted to zoom in on an object 100 feet away without interpolation you'd need a ridiculous amount..

[MackemX]

to record high quality movies

I think I'll stick with my GL2 at the moment. It is amazing what they are packing into devices today, My uncle has one of the original handheld electronic calculators that is probably as big as that because it had to be.. I'd imagine shortly the only issue is going to be lenses which is a pretty big issue. AFAIK at the moment there's no replacement for glass except for censor size/MP's and if you wanted to zoom in on an object 100 feet away without interpolation you'd need a ridiculous amount..

oops, didn't I mention that I meant high quality 'content' movies and not 'picture' quality :P

OK so I'm joking