Hourly Rate difference between SD and HD?

[Mark Raudonis]

You can’t make such a sweeping statemement. What was your original rate? $25 bucks an hour? Your best bet would be to do a comparative market survey and see what your competition is charging for a similar service. Then, you can decide where you want to position yourself relative to the market.

Mark

[Matthewg]

Well the reason I didn’t mention the rate is that everytime someone asks about an hourly rate in this forum, massive flaming ensues. I figured I could just speak in terms of a percentage increase and try and keep things civil. For the record, our card rate for SD editing on an FCP system is $150 per hour, which is right in the middle of our market. So again, should I raise that for HD or still charge $150?

[Ben Oliver]

i honestly think that editing is intuitive, and not a matter of gear. pricing should be based on the type of project.

i understand that you need to pay for gear, thats just my two cents.

[John Davidson]

Some places do, some places don’t. I just got billed $200hr for DVCProHD + operator. All they did was digitize the footage for me and dump the clips from the capture folder to a hard drive I supplied.

Otherwise they charge 100/hr plus editor. It’s ironic to me because DVCProHD uncompressed is half the file size of SD Digibeta. I think the deck is even cheaper, too.

If you’re doing full on REAL HD with massive file sizes and the like, go for it. Especially if you have that expensive new deck I can’t remember the name of….

Eventually I’d say that most clients will figure out that in some instances HD is cheaper to do and easier on edit systems (like DVCProHD). Prior to a month ago, I didn’t know that there was a difference between DVCProHD and FULL HD. I now think DVCProHD is awesome.

j

[Boyd Mccollum]

Is there a middle of your market for HD?

If not, I think you can look at it from a business standpoint, what your investment costs would be to build an HD suite (create a separate bay, or combine it with your SD one), depreciation on the equipment, how long before it becomes obsolete (and needing to be replaced), and how many billable hours will result from doing HD, add in your profit margin, etc., then do the math and that’s what you should charge. You could also compare against how much your overhead is on the SD stuff you do, and how much more you incur for HD stuff, and use that as a basis for your decision. Even if some of your assumptions turn out to be wrong, it is better to base your decision on a specific set of criteria, rather than just an arbitrary number (and by posting for information here, you obviously don’t want to do that).

Boyd
“Go slow to go fast”

[Matthewg]

There is no HD market here, which is what prompted my question. Let me simplify my question: Do you charge more for an HD job? If so, what is the percentage difference in your rates. Thanks again.

[Debe]

I don’t do HD, but I work with a group of guys who do.

In our market, at least, it seems like everyone bumped their rates a wee bit, for SD and HD in the past 18 months or so. I want to say almost all rates went up 25%.

There’s no difference in output format to my guys. SD, HD, DVD, QRSTUV, it’s all the same. If everything costs the same, fewer haggles and hassles.

So it would seem. That was the philosophy, anyway. I’ve not asked how it’s working in practice.

They focus on selling the talent, not the gear. Best marketing I’ve seen so far. The gear will change. Good talent is (hopefully) forever.

two cents

debe

[Boyd Mccollum]

I agree with Debe that talent is the key, but you need to take into account hardware costs. For instance, at a production house the rental rates for a miniDV cam are different than for a Varicam and are different for a 35mm film camera (and rates in Boise might be different than LA or NY). Just adding an HD monitor could run you 15K, not to mention a studio quality HD vcr(s) (and which formats? HD, Sony HDV, JVC HDV) and suddenly your capital costs skyrocket. Your prices need to cover these expenditures. The fact that there is no HD market in your area actually works in your favor in two respects. One is lack of competition for your HD services, and two, you can set your rates based on sound business reasons specific to your company, rather than “market rates” which often reflect the market (by definition), and not actual costs of the services provided. One rate for SD/HD makes sense in a more mature market, or as HD becomes more common, but raising your SD rates at this time, which could still be your bread and butter after you add HD, might not be a good idea – that’s something you need to decide based on knowing your customers.

Boyd
“Go slow to go fast”

[Walter Biscardi]

[MatthewG] ”
There is no HD market here, which is what prompted my question. Let me simplify my question: Do you charge more for an HD job? If so, what is the percentage difference in your rates. Thanks again.”

Let me ask you this, how much do you know about HD? Are you comfortable with the three major formats and all the variable frame rates? If a client brings you 720p footage shot in 6 different frame rates and wants you to deliver a 24p master, can you do that today? If a client brings you HDCAM, DV, DVCAM, 720p and DigiBeta and asks you to deliver a 1080i 29.97 Master, can you do that today?

One thing I learned very quickly about HD is the equipment doesn’t matter at all if you don’t know what you’re doing. I spent 6 months working out the HD Post workflow for Good Eats and most of that was research, testing, research, testing, etc…. So there’s no way I could charge a premium for my services while I was doing research or doing my first HD jobs. I’m one year into my HD Post work here and we’re still constantly learning new things, but my skill and comfort level are much greater than many others in my market. I also have a wealth of resources in the industry to call upon whenever we start a new job.

So now that I have two Uncompressed HD suites and the knowledge to use them, my prices do differ between SD and HD. It’s not a 100% difference, what I do is increase the hourly rate for what I think is fair and then charge the client an hourly rental rate for those hours our SD or HD deck is being used. If the job requires an outside rental deck, I simply pass through the charges with no add-on.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com

“The Rough Cut,” an original short film premiering December 7th in full High Definition in Atlanta.
rsvp@biscardicreative.com to reserve seats.
https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

Now editing “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Wes Plate]

Me, I wouldn’t charge more. My time is worth the same whether I’m cutting cool HD stuff or lame SD stuff. In fact maybe there should be a “lame” surcharge. Let’s say you invest in an HD FCP room, everyone who uses it should help you pay for it, whether they’re in SD or HD. Are you going to work less-hard on an SD project than on an HD project?

If the rest of your market is SD and you’re the hot-s**t HD boutique, then charge more, not just because you’re HD but because you’re Cool, you’re Better.

But when the SD people come in, they pay the same rate.

It comes down to talent and skill. If you suck then you should sell your gear and move on, but if you’re the stuff then charge for it. The hardware you use really doesn’t factor in so much any more.

— Wes Plate
Automatic Duck