Chris Blair
Forum Replies Created
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It shows up when I look at it.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Todd Terry: A couple of years ago, in an effort to make myself move a little, I went out and bought a decent treadmill. This thing is GREAT!… it can literally hold like forty shirts.
I almost spit out my coffee when I read your post this morning. Funny and true. And those things are dangerous! They have those keys like motorboats…where you attach it to yourself so if you fall down or off the treadmill (or out of the boat), the key pulls out and stops the motor. And wasn’t Mike Tyson’s daughter killed while playing on one of those things? (a treadmill..not a motorboat).
I find that as I get older (48 now) I don’t feel that different physically, but mentally…now that’s another story. We have a running joke around the office that we should be granted honorary degrees in psychology after all the counseling, support and “treatment” we’ve given worried, insecure clients.
A couple years ago a client called about a project and said: “I just really need to talk this through…can I come over right now? I need to go through everything one more time? I’d feel a lot better if I could just talk to you one more time.” This after we’d already discussed multiple storyboards, scripts, and reviewed movies they’d edited on their PC to show how they wanted the video to look and move. Now don’t get me wrong, I appreciate all that stuff (since few clients even know what a storyboard is), but I find it amazing that marketing professionals need that kind of reassurance of their ideas.
I’ve literally sat in the edit suite with 4 or 5 corporate “marketing” executives for an hour as they discussed whether they should fade to black or cut to black at the end of a spot. Or whether to put a shadow on the logo on leave it off. Never mind that the video itself was a re-edit of video shot in 1993 and since dubbed and re-dubbed with the original footage having long ago been lost. I don’t think a fade or cut to black really mattered at that point. I think these types of things have affected my mental health much more than anything has affected my physical well-being.
Some of it is funny and makes for great conversation, but sometimes it just steals a little bit of your soul!
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Good point and likely a big reason for the preference.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Interesting. I thought for using H264 I had read that Adobe recommended AVC (advanced video codec) for video and AAC for audio.
As far as I know (and I could be wrong), all H264 codecs (Main Concept, Apple, Nero, Lead and others) follow the standards set for H264/AVC so that should be a non-issue. It was designed to be like MPG2 where the specs are pretty tight on the video part of the codec.
Audio could be an issue since you typicaly have a choice of several codecs in encoding apps, but if the file is encoded using AVC and AAC, from everything I’ve read on Adobe’s site and other forums, it should be a non-issue.
I don’t recall hinting even being an option in any encoding app I’ve ever used for doing H264, unless it’s called “streaming” which is often an option you can check. But from my reading, that typically just places metadata at the beginning of the file so the player can find it and read it quickly.
I could understand if some of the other encoding options such as profile levels, keyframing, I,B & P frames etc. affect it…but if you stick with AVC for video and AAC for audio, according to Adobe it should work fine.
I just find it interesting that major video sites are using H264 without issue yet there seems to be this reluctance to implement it on smaller sites.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Funny but we just did this for a client and that’s exactly what we did. Create image files and the client just puts links on the pages. They even created cover art the visitor can download and print to a DVD label. Now I don’t know who sits and downloads 2 or 3GB then burns their own DVD and prints their own label, but I suppose people do.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
My number one complaint about employees, clients, vendors etc. is that they don’t really listen. I’m continually amazed by what people “hear” in meetings and informal discussions.
I take a lot of notes in meetings, and with some clients have even videotaped large gatherings where lots of high-ranking people are involved.
I also type up a 1 page (or one computer screen length) summary of what was discussed after meetings and ask the client or vendor if this is what he/she heard. They’ll usually say “yes” or correct a few points and we’ll move on.
What’s incredible is to compare what I “hear” in these meeting with other secondary people in the room. It will often be 180 degrees different. And sometimes, people “fill in the blanks” and “create” topics and/or answers that were NEVER discussed. The first few times this happened I assumed I just missed that piece of important info…until I started asking others in the meeting, “do you remember that being discussed or decided?” And repeatedly getting a puzzled “no” in response.
So listening and “hearing” is important, but I think it’s equally important to follow up with concise, point by point summaries to keep things on track. Because many people appear to listen and hear what’s being said, but their interpretation of that information can be completely different than yours.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
One thing I’ll add is that while I agree with Bob’s method of doing business and it’s virtually the exact same model we use. Running your business that way DEMANDS that you charge accordingly when you do the paying part of the gig.
What I mean is, you can’t undercut, underbid or leave ANYTHING out of your esimate/bid if you’re going to provide the freebie help along the way.
One problem we run into is occasionally we’ll bid a job with a first-time client that turns into a much bigger job AFTER they see the level of customer service, quality and speed they’re getting. We’re going through the right now with a client that did one small job…(that turned into a bigger job mid-project), and now a flood of jobs are coming our way from them.
When that happens, you have to IMMEDIATELY discuss the changes with the client and point out that the project specs have changed and that it means re-estimated the project and getting new contracts and P.O.s issued.
When we run into these situations, pricing and estimating on all of the work is a constant give and take with the client (who is thankfully understanding about it), because they keep “upping the ante” so to speak on content, quality etc…mainly because they realize how much more responsive we are than the people they used to use. On the first project, as soon as we started going overbudget, (mostly due to the client not providing work they promised to move the project along) we made them aware of the changes and extra work at every stage. They were actually appreciative of the way we handled it.
So…you have to set your pricing at a rate than can sustain all the little “extras” you throw into the mix, like being ready to help at the the drop of a hat. And…you have to continually be upfront about any changes in the project specs and discuss budget adjustments. What gets a lot of people in trouble is they’re so eager to please a client, they blindly agree to whatever the client wants even if it’s way beyond the scope of the original project, and they fail to discuss that if they’re doing a LOT more work, they should be paid more money.
For some reason a lot of people are afraid to discuss money and budgets in meetings. I ALWAYS discuss it in detail and I also always immediately bring it up when project specs change significantly in the middle of a project. It eliminates a lot of problems and animosity down the road and I find that our clients rarely object to it, in fact, the opposite is true, they like keeping the issue of budgets up front.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
I’d buff your feet with a loofa and fix you breakfast in bed every Saturday if you’d provide that kind of service to me.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Unfortunately we don’t use Dreamweaver and the javascript method works nicely. But good info for those that do.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
“Steve Kownacki wrote: you never want to look too available”
The one place I’d disagree with this is when a current or potential client calls wanting information about a quote or project. I’ll give you an example. I was getting quotes for renting a P+S Technik Lens adaptor and lenses for a project.
I called and/or emailed about 5 places to get quotes. I got 1 back within minutes with detailed information and exact answers to my questions along with a quote. I got another within 30 minutes with good but incomplete info and a cheaper quote. The other three took anywhere from 4 hours to 3 days to get back to me with either information or a quote.
The guy that responded first followed up later that day with a phone call to make sure I got the email and if the quote was what I needed.
Nobody else followed up. The first guy’s quote was the second most expensive of the 5. Guess who I rented from? The guy who responded first and with the best information and followed up on his response to make sure I had what I needed. He was about $300 more expensive than the next quote and almost $500 more than the lowest quote. But I KNEW I was going to get what I needed for the equipment to work because it was clear he knew what he was talking about. Some of the other people had never even heard of the camera we use (Panasonic SDX900), which is kind of scary. It requires a special plate to attach the P+S Technik adaptor. Some of the rental houses didn’t know what I was talking about when I mentioned it.
So long story short…I rented from the place that was the most responsive and most eager to do business with me. It was a good lesson to me to respond quickly when clients email or call about a quote or project. If I wait 2, 3, 5 days…I’m probably going to lose the project. People want to cross stuff off their list. Wait 3 days to respond to a client, you’ll get crossed off that list too.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com