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I say AMEN to all that Mark has said.

You say “Just shows that I lack business knowledge. But I can’t keep this from stoping me. I must start a business of my own.”

Please don’t take it hard but just because you don’t want it to stop you douse not mean that it wont. Without “business knowledge” ANY BUSINESS CAN FAIL, even if you are the most talented person out there in your craft, if you don’t know what you are doing on the business end (which is the biggest end of any business) you can shoot yourself in the foot. Start by reading the Business & Marketing forum here on the cow.

You say you must start a business of your own, many people I know myself included only do there video production business or graphic design business on the side, because it is hard to hake it full time on your own. There are things like medical insurance and other benefits that come from working somewhere else, if you had to provide these for yourself the cost is MUCH greater.

I wish you the best of luck, but definitely do a lot more looking before you leap.

[13]

“All true EXCEPT for the XP part”

I was never talking about windows, I was talking about media performance. Which is what his main question was about.

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“He will get %50 of every event I do until I pay off in total $14000”

That is quite steep, would you be able to make enough for your own needs (rent, car payment, food etc) you would have to be doing twice the amount of business to make the same amount of money, and that would be EXTREMELY difficult if you are just starting. If all you need is $7000 you might consider looking into a small business loan (they definitely wont have 100-150% interest).

Another option would be to rent your equipment, and incorporate that into your production fees (you should be incorporating equipment cost into it any way even if you own the equipment).

It is HARD to start your own business and tying your to an agreement involving you paying 100-150% interest, is way to risky in my book. I don’t want to discourage you but many small business never make it, and if you are bound by something requiring you to pay 100-150% interest would make it even harder. Personally when I started up I did a combination, I got a loan for my camera, and I rent additional equipment as necessary because not all events require more. I factor both into the cost that I charge.

On another note the most you have been studying “the craft” for several years, but that is actually a small part of the business, the bigger part is the business part. Most business fail because of a lack of business knowledge, especially if you plan on growing and bring on employees.. I am not saying that you don’t, it is just a common thing that I see.

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Partitioning will not speed what you are doing up. One of the main reasons to use a separate drive is because your main drive is already running the OS, applications, etc. making it also handle large media files, just gives it to much to do all at once. While partitioning the drive may make it look like a separate drive, it is still the same physical drive that must do all the work.

Use a completely different drive.

If you want something more portable look into a small portable hard drive.

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I always say work in the lowest resolution shot, in your case that would be dv-pal.
Down-convert the HDV and to match the lower resolution. Up resolution can look ok sometimes but not always.

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“Anyhow, he doesn’t recall just where he’d “heard” this, but it must be true afterall? ”

No credible source… no source…

Unless he can back it up, who cares.

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What exactly is not working? You never said.

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yup just put the old computer into target mode by restarting and holding down the t key

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If you haven’t set up a user account on the powerbook then before you do there is an option to migrate everything from your old computer.

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yes