Canon xh a1 mini dv tape put in another mini dv camera to digitize??

I own both the Canon XH-A1 and the Sony DCR-VX2000 (my first digital camcorder purchased back in 2000). When I record a tape in standard defintion with the Canon, I am able to play it back with the Sony. However, this is only one camera that works, I have not tried any others. Will you be shooting in HDV or SD?

Also, if I were digitizing each tape to a DVD, and each DVD took one hour to finish, I would definately try to get my money's worth out of it. That will be a lot of work on your part.

I do stuff like this all the time for people and because I live in a small town where I'm one of about 2 or 3 people that does video work for a living, everybody tends to know me and my family. So, because I feel guilty, I usually don't charge enough for little jobs like that on the side. But, I would say a fair price would be at least $10 an hour. Anything less and you are getting ripped off in my opinion.

Anybody else with thoughts?

The client must have at least an HDV camera to play the tapes IF you record in HDV. If you record in standard definition, then there should be no problem.

As to converting to dual layer DVD (9 GB/disk) ... that's about 40 minutes of DV-NTSC video per disk, and you expect to have 14 hours? Eeek! That's going to take 3.5 hours minimum for 2 tapes. Multiply that by 7 and throw in a 20% unknown factor and you've got 30 hours; nearly a week of mindless work. You really can't charge by the hour, as you can read posts on this website and write about how much you regret taking the job, while you're burning disks.

I would charge them $60/hour to shoot their video, including setup and one-way travel time. Then I'd charge them $50/tape to convert to DVD. If they said they didn't want to pay that much, I'd tell them to look elsewhere. That is the bargain basement price, and for that I'd basically setup the shot and monitor the camera while it recorded to be sure everything was working.

Here is another approach ...
If you're shooting in a studio, setup to capture directly from the camera. Record to tape as a backup, and when you're finished recording, you should be finished capturing. I do that sometimes when working in the studio. On long running shots, it can save a lot of time. That might leave an open bed at the local insane asylum that you'd have otherwise occupied, and it may save your customer some money. Just be sure they understand that if the realtime capture fails, they will pay to convert the tapes.

Hey Swan,

My hourly camera work (with canon xh a1 hdv 1440 x 1080) and editing rate is $100hr. With this ala cart stuff I am trying to figure out what to charge for other services that I tend to do for free or think of it as inclusive to the hourly rate. Here is a break down of recent job I did:

2 hrs of HDV taping (there 30 minutes earlier)


2 hrs of digitizing (checking periodically for dropped frames and such)
10 minutes to back up the data on sata external
30 minutes for the quick edit
1.5 hours First rendering (after editing the footage, removing intermission = 1.5 hours)
30 minutes in DVD authoring
8.5 hours of final render (creation of the DVD)
Additional DVD's (take 30 to 40 minutes to burn) charged $25 to burn additional.

=$300 (and this was a special rate for my dance teacher)

Anyway, am I in the ball park here? I still need to figure out if I can give the person a tape recorded in hdv and whether or not they can use their standard dv and digitize it themselves. I called every place where I live when I started my business. The average is $150 to $200 for camera work and $100 to $150 for editing.

Oak, I thought I read that somewhere--needs to be hdv to read an hdv tape from another camera. Thanks. May I ask what are you using to capture in real time with your xh a1? I just picked up the adobe master collection and I believe one of the software programs allows me to do that.

When you say include travel time are you saying bill for traveling at $60 hr for one way and however long it takes to set up? I was thinking the same way you were--for that price just setting the camera up in one position and monitoring it--no panning or zooming or anything creative.

Thanks.

Yes, I always charge one way travel time at whatever rate I'm charging for my work. That is sort of a standard among professionals. It ends up being 1/2 rate times full travel time, if you want to think of it that way. When I'm shooting commercials, I charge a flat rate, plus $75/hr for shooting, recording voice overs, setting up, and one-way travel, plus any special effects, music fees, etc. It's pretty easy to charge a flat rate for a 30 second spot, since even if it's a b*tch to edit, how long could it possibly take? !!! Of course, for CG effects and such, I charge by the hour, because someone's going to ask me to do something that takes 3 days in Lightwave and another week to render, if I don't let them know they will have to pay big bucks for it.

I think I'm giving them a great deal at $75/hour for shooting. The reason I keep it low is because I want the work ... I enjoy it, and the local TV stations will shoot and edit a 30 second spot for under $500, because they're making money on the air time. I can easily crank out 3 commercials a week. I make a minimum of $500 on a single commercial. They aren't going to make me rich, but give me a chance to go out and shoot, rather than working on the computer all the time. I still make more money doing software, but after nearly a quarter century of coding, it's not as much fun as it used to be.

I know, that was more information than you wanted.

Doug

Thanks for all the info. I didn't write code but I used to set up networks in college and train people on software. And compared to the sit down job at the potter's wheel, I too like getting out and shooting. Always wanted to be a director and actor since 4th grade so the idea of making indie films is where my head is at romantically but practically with 4 kids and wife I will be happy to do commercial work if it pays the bills and affords me to make indie films. I worked in video as an art director at the tv station in college and that got my taste buds going.

Anyway, I like information so don't ever feel like you got to hold back. I appreciate it and you just never know--you and I or anyone else on this thread may end up working together one day--so again, I appreciate the free flow of information and the sharing of experience.

Since we're sharing, I been a studio artist (pottery, some tile, some sculpture, photography) since 2000 full time. Before that, part time. I have taught on and off as an adjunct for the last 8 years and done with education I think do to the peter principal (I taught face to face, online, developed curriculum, etc.) I took that money I made teaching last year and pot sales and purchased equipment, built a high end dual core with a buddy, purchased a $@#$ load of software, etc. That Adobe collection has me (even with a bit of a computer background and motivated self learning) feeling overwhelmed.

I am using Sony Vegas Pro--which is proving to be pretty sweet with hd, masking, tracking and compositing features that I've only glimpsed at. I also purchased Sony Acid--bunch of loop libraries--and wow is that cool making your own music. I've wanted also to get into CG and FX and been pleased with what I see AE offering--video copilot has some nice tutorials and products I am looking at buying. A guy can only learn so many new things at once so I've decided to put my focus on more advanced features in Vegas and starting from the ground up with AE. Now, I am sure that is more than you wanted to hear.

Tony
www.tonyferguson.net

AG, my cousin is an adobe whiz and goes to UMD (I think). Good art eye on that kid too.

What do you guys think of recording with canon xh a1 in standard definition--(thus giving the tapes to the client so they can digitize them in and edit themselves) in terms of the quality? I am going to do some tests, but will a client who is going to burn to a standard DVD anyway going to notice a great difference in quality versus if I shot in HDV at 1440 x 1080 60i?

I am not comfortable with ala carting what I consider my work or a chance at it being compromised in terms of quality, but I will take the job if I have to. I need to figure out if the quality is still good at standard definition.

Tony

Do some tests, but you should get better SD quality with the Canon than you'd get with a miniDV camera, as the lens is higher res and the CCD has more pixels. One of the reasons I wanted the Panasonic HVX 200 (?) is because it would record standard def in 4:2:2, DV50Mbps, which give better color resolution at standard def. I think you're going to get 16:9 by default. You may want to ask your client if they want 4:3 or 16:9 before you do your testing, because it will make a difference in how the CCD is utilized.

I forgot to answer the real time capture question ... I use Final Cut Pro for real time capture. I've also used iMovie on my laptop (in a pinch) and Final Cut Express on my laptop for SD. I'm pretty sure my laptop wouldn't keep up to a long-running HD capture to disk, but I haven't tried it.

For standard definition stuff, BTV is really nice, because it shows your video full screen, and it has all sorts of capture options. I haven't used it in a couple of years, though.