Making broadcast copies for individual Franchises

[Chris Tompkins]

20 Beta Tapes cost = $160.00
20 Station Pay you = $15,000

Sounds like a deal to me…
(I know, shipping = $60.00)

But, that aside, I think u’ll have to check with the stations and see what deliverable they’ll except. Some may take a digital file and some may not.

Maybe you can ftp mpegs to some and data disc mov. to some and beta tape to some?

Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta

[Neil Hurwitz]

If you can get 750.00 each JUMP ON IT
20 tapes, @ 10.00 each = 200.00
20 Fed Ex,@ 35.00 each = 700.00
2 Day BetaSP Rental @150.00 = 300.00 (if you don’t have one)
Your cost 1,200.00
It should take you an hour at most to tag these
Your Profit 13,800.00
or looking at it slightly diferently
that’s 690.00 an Hour for your time

RUN, JUMP, RUN as fast as you can to get this job
And if you want to do nothing, NADA, Nothing
send it to me and I’ll tag and ship them for
400.00 each and you make a cool 7000.00 for doing nothing
RUN, JUMP, RUN
I realize that you want to maximize your profit
but this is a home run.
Most here would piss themselves to get such a profitable gig.
RUN JUMP RUN

Neil Hurwitz

[Neil Hurwitz]

OOPS, I meant an HOUR for EACH
for a total of 20 hours
But should be way less

Neil Hurwitz

[Phil Smith]

This is exactly what I do all day (when I’m not on the road). Sweet! 😉

I would start off by asking your client if they belong to a service such as Aspera (FTP on steroids for broadcast) OR if they are partnered with TVN, Ascent or a similar regional provider for spot delivery. If they are, your job just got SUPER easy. These services are in the business of distributing regional specific spots.

For Aspera: All you would have to do is create your end-pages to the spots, create a master sequence, and output as either DVCPro50 or DVCProHD. I believe that Aspera also accepts PhotoJPEG as a codec, but I prefer DVC if the client will take it because it will easily keep 4 tracks of audio with very little hit in quality. That way my mix minus doesn’t have to be a separate file.

For TVN, Ascent or similar: All you have to do is print to Digi or SP with your Master reel, and TVN will setup a link (usually VYVX or Sat Feed) with the regionals and everybody will take what they need from the feed.

One more thing: DVCPro50 is fine for FTP, and looks fine (especially for SD).

If they don’t have these options, things vary greatly form there. I would likely just proceed with charging them an hourly + expenses.

I don’t mean to pry, but I’m curious as to why you are so nervous about this? They seem to like your work. I wouldn’t discount too much as long as they know you will deliver.

Good luck!
-PJ

[Jared Cicon]

Hey Chris,
I know it may not seem like a lot of work, but all of the phone calls/recording/shipping that will go into figuring out deliverability to each of the 20 different local cable channels could get very convoluted. Time is just as expensive as beta tapes (even more so). I wonder if I can simply quote them a Hi-Def .mov or data file via FTP or DVD and let each franchise handle the issue between themselves and the cable channel they’ll be interacting with. Do you think that would fly?
Jared

[Jared Cicon]

Hey Phil,
Lot’s of great information in your response. I always look forward to inquiring here at Creative Cow, coz I am always amazed at the breadth of knowledge of the community. Right now I am up in San Francisco attending a wedding for my wife’s cousin. In fact, she is giving me the evil eye as I type this for returning your email, but she understands that I am asking for a favor of you guys there at CC, so it’s all good.
If I am creating a master copy from FCP 6.0.6, from footage shot on a Sony HDRFX-1 (mini-dv) and captured at 1440×1080, am I still ok exporting using the DVCpro50 codec? My time line has the 1440×1080 attributes. And will the franchises be able to take that DVCpro50 file and create a high quality beta copy?
I guess another question is: Can I simply send that DVCpro50 file to a mastering house and have a beta copy made directly from it, in the same way I have a beta made from a ProRes file?
Hope I am making myself clear. I only started commercial production about four years ago and am still in a little bit of a rookie phase.

Jared

[Jared Cicon]

Hey Neil,
First of all, thanks for taking the time to hook me up with your knowledge.
I have never rented a Beta Machine myself, but this looks like it may be an option, if I get the green light from all of the different franchises all in the same week. How exactly would it work. Do I hook the beta recorder up via firewire to my Mac and just use the Print to Tape out of FCP?
Jared

[Chris Tompkins]

Output ur finished timeline to a reference file.
Bring that into compressor.
Create DV50 file or whatever format u need.

Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta

[Jared Cicon]

Hey Chris,
Thanks for getting back to me, and please bear with me for asking rookie questions. When you say ‘reference file’ do you mine a ‘QUICKTIME MOVIE’?
Jared
If I don’t respond to your next email soon it is because my wife made me go to her cousin’s wedding reception.

[Phil Smith]

So, just to make sure I have this understood… You want these masters to come out as SD (standard definition) correct?

Because it sounds like you shot HDV, captured it to ProRes, edited your piece and used compressor to crop and spit out a BetaSP copy?

Sorry, just want to be absolutely sure before I go any further…

-PJ