How to make a buck with this?

[tumbar]

I have been intrested in this hobby for about 1 year. I have completed a few projects, all for friends and family or church. There is no one in my area servicing the weddings, 50th anniverssary, recitals etc. I know some of you started out this way and may still be in the business.

Can you point me in the right direction, where to find out more as for as fee charging goes. $Flat fee + $per disk?

I'm at the point where I would like to have the hobby be self sufficient....know what I mean? Not sure how much demand is out there, but I think it's significant. People are aware of dvd, but most are totally clueless regarding how to and the process is confusing to the uninitiated and frankly, I don't think most people are willing to take the time required to learn the process.

thanks, Jim How can I make a buck with this?

[adam]

Nothing beats the yellow pages. Place an ad and you will get some business. Do a couple jobs and keep some extra copies of your work. Make a little portfolio and present it to people who can give you referrals.

Go to wedding planners, florists, and most importantly photographers. Convince them that if they refer business to you, you can refer business to them. Of course don't bother dealing with photographers who provide the same services as you. Most photographers just take pictures, or they may video tape events but they don't generally edit them with effects and such and they don't usually offer DVD recording.

The problem with this type of busniness is compatibility. The only way to make a truly compatible format is to use VHS. DVD recording is still hit or miss and forget about VCD or SVCD. Besides the fact that these offer lower overall compatibility, most people outside of Asia have never even heard of them.

I could see a decent market for VHS backup to DVD though. And the good thing about this is that you will occasionally get the customer who wants to back up his entire vhs collection, which might be quite large. You would have to send them a sample dvd to make sure it played on their player first though before taking the job.

There are actually a decent amount of companies that provide these types of services ie: VHS archiving, regional format conversions, mastering home video collection into a presentation, etc... but most of them require you to mail in your material. Just do some web searches and check out their prices and undercut them a little. You will probably get a decent amount of local business.