[Bob Cole]

Imagine Products may have something of interest.

Please report what you have found works best for you.

Bob C

MacPro 2 x 3GHz dualcore; 10 GB 667MHz
Kona LHe
Sony HDV Z1
Sony HDV M25U
HD-Connect MI
Betacam UVW1800
DVCPro AJ-D650

[Bob Cole]

[Timothy J. Allen] “While local competition is a factor, I believe that it’s not the most important factor. How much you need to make to cover your expenses is even more important.”

That’s an interesting thought.

You can bend yourself in pretzels worrying about how well/quickly “someone else” could do a job, and how much “someone else” would charge. (See more recent thread about charging for motion graphics work.) But the bottom line is that you have to survive, and you may not be the best judge of your competition’s worth anyway.

Bob C

MacPro 2 x 3GHz dualcore; 10 GB 667MHz
Kona LHe
Sony HDV Z1
Sony HDV M25U
HD-Connect MI
Betacam UVW1800
DVCPro AJ-D650

[Bob Cole]

Conversely… What about someone who knew exactly what to do, had invested in superfast machines, owned an extensive collection of software and plug-ins, and could do the job well and quickly? Would that pro be justified in billing more than the actual hours it took? I say yes.

When I bought my house, I complained to my uncle about the huge commission the realtor got for just a few hours of work. The uncle (also a realtor) defended the fee; my realtor, he said, had invested many hours learning how to match client and house, and keeping up with the available inventory. I should have been all the happier that he got the job done quickly, for my sake.

Later, I looked for another house with another realtor, who spent dozens of hours with me, and never did find me a house. He wasn’t a very good realtor, he got ZERO fee, and I got ZERO house. I paid nothing. But it took me weeks to spend nothing, so in a way, the second realtor turned out to be much more expensive.

I think a seasoned pro who does a “two-hour job” in 30 minutes would be justified in spending an hour doing computer maintenance, and billing for 1.5 hours.

Bob C

MacPro 2 x 3GHz dualcore; 10 GB 667MHz
Kona LHe
Sony HDV Z1
Sony HDV M25U
HD-Connect MI
Betacam UVW1800
DVCPro AJ-D650

[Bob Cole]

Thanks John. That’s sort of what I suspected — esp. if you are not leaving a light on all day long, every day.

Acc. to Chimera, the two-pin bulb in the Triolet should be used with the protective dome, and with the protective dome, it tends to overheat when used base up, i.e. in the hanging lantern configuration. For hanging a lantern with the Triolet, they recommend a Mogul base bulb, which is happy burning in any direction and doesn’t need the protective dome.

In a pinch, the two-pin bulb can be used base up without the protective dome, but then there’s no protection in case of bulb breakage.

Bob C

MacPro 2 x 3GHz dualcore; 10 GB 667MHz
Kona LHe
Sony HDV Z1
Sony HDV M25U
HD-Connect MI
Betacam UVW1800
DVCPro AJ-D650

[Bob Cole]

Great suggestions — thank you very much. This may help him fix his identity crisis.

Best,

Bob

MacPro 2 x 3GHz dualcore; 10 GB 667MHz
Kona LHe
Sony HDV Z1
Sony HDV M25U
HD-Connect MI
Betacam UVW1800
DVCPro AJ-D650

[Bob Cole]

[Mark Palmos] “a failed burn is completely different from a successfully burned disk which fails after some time. Have you had ANY of those”

Yes I have. I wasn’t counting failed burns. Mark, this doesn’t happen often, but just one or two failed DVDs on which you were relying can be quite disastrous. But the main reason I’m down on DVDs is their low capacity. And it’s another reason for higher-capacity formats like tape: if it’s easier to make backups, it will be easier to make TWO backups.

I don’t know the science behind this, but the only DVDs that fail are the ones which

(1) hold data you need; and
(2) are the only place you’ve stored the data you need.

MacPro 2 x 3GHz dualcore; 10 GB 667MHz
Kona LHe
Sony HDV Z1
Sony HDV M25U
HD-Connect MI
Betacam UVW1800
DVCPro AJ-D650

[Bob Cole]

[Bill Bilowit – Tareco Pictures] “You are saying that for you, DVD-R is not so wonderfully reliable; details please!”

I haven’t kept count, but I’d estimate about 1/25 of my data DVDs fail. I burn most of my DVDs on PCs, with Sony burner, Taiyo Yuden DVD-R blanks, RecordNow Deluxe software (which I suspect is the weak link, since it often necessitates a reboot after working). Oddly, my results burning video DVDs are much better, perhaps because I use .iso image files and DVD Decrypter for those.

The main problem with DVDs is low capacity. That’s why I’d really like to hear a good solid recommendation for LTO tapes. It is not sensible, imho, to go tapeless, until the archiving process gets cheaper and more reliable.

MacPro 2 x 3GHz dualcore; 10 GB 667MHz
Kona LHe
Sony HDV Z1
Sony HDV M25U
HD-Connect MI
Betacam UVW1800
DVCPro AJ-D650

[Bob Cole]

[Wayne Carey] “BluRay has a shelf life longer than 50 years. Lots more permanent than any tape based system to date or SATA drive.”

When DVDs came out I think I heard that they had an extremely long lifespan. My own experience has taught me otherwise.

Is there an authoritative source which can tell us which method is most bullet-proof? The whole point of archiving is to be able to get the material back at some distant future date.

I don’t need 50 years — I’d settle for 15! That’s a lot more than I’m getting now with DVDs and, apparently, my stack of external hard drives.

btw, I doubt that Blu-Ray is the answer — far too little capacity.

MacPro 2 x 3GHz dualcore; 10 GB 667MHz
Kona LHe
Sony HDV Z1
Sony HDV M25U
HD-Connect MI
Betacam UVW1800
DVCPro AJ-D650

[Bob Cole]

[Erik Davis] “Now, regarding the fact that I have 1000 (30) minute Beta SP tape library that I will need to duplicate within the next 60 days or so. Instead of just duping them all to Beta SP again I have considered dubbing them to a digital codec but which one?”

Digital, definitely, but no matter what digital format you choose, you’ll have to keep recopying it. Take a look at yesterday’s NY Times Business section article on how Hollywood has discovered that archiving digital sources is much more expensive than film!

Format — 25mbps seems a little small but I suspect that the color space issue is the real biggie.

Are you digitizing for archival purposes or for ready access?
If the former, you may want to recopy your files immediately onto LTO-3 tapes, as they seem more “archival” than hard drives, DVDs, etc. But who really knows?

MacPro 2 x 3GHz dualcore; 10 GB 667MHz
Kona LHe
Sony HDV Z1
Sony HDV M25U
HD-Connect MI
Betacam UVW1800
DVCPro AJ-D650

[Bob Cole]

Great thread.

re: the FCP-PP decision: PP with Axio is quite appealing, especially if you intercut various formats. FCP will handle many formats, but mixing them on a timeline can involve re-rendering for even a single frame edit. Integration with AE and PS is a point in PP’s favor.

I chose FCP, but I am keeping my eye on PP. Despite many frustrations with FCP, I haven’t seen a good enough reason to switch to PP.

Bob C

MacPro 2 x 3GHz dualcore; 10 GB 667MHz
Kona LHe
Sony HDV Z1
Sony HDV M25U
HD-Connect MI
Betacam UVW1800
DVCPro AJ-D650