[Craig Seeman]

But it was impossible for me to find the “downloads” on the new site. It’s obviously a work in progress but they certainly seem to be responding to complaints that the site really doesn’t/didn’t/doesn’t do the EX series justice.

[Craig Seeman]

So it’s basically a “verbal agreement of possibly an “unspoken” understanding. The later is the most dangerous footing of course.

There’s basically two aspects then. The “legal” aspect and the “client relationship” aspect. Depending on what was said or “understood” you could argue that he’s only paid for the DVDs. In that case you could charge him for the masters BUT depending on the price and his sentiments, he may never hire you again. That’s the client relationship part.

He might have no problem parting with some money for masters OR he might argue it was a “work for hire” in which he “owns” the footage. There’s nothing in writing to prove that though.

BTW, you’d be surprised what quality local cable advertising can accept. Certainly he can rip the DVDs you gave him and use the converted footage to re-edit. Then you’d have to decide if you want to fight him on that.

You have to decide if it’s worth the fight vs loosing the client.

I think the smarter thing is to pursue this as offering an ADDITIONAL service. Tell him you can make master quality selects miniDV or DVCAM that will be much higher quality than the DVD. You can then charge for some edit time to make the selects and charge for the dub to miniDV.

If he doesn’t want to go through hours of DVDs or the tape masters to find the shots (and who does), he may gladly pay for you to do this little project for him (selects footage to miniDV). That way he feels like he’s buying an added service and not just the footage.

In other words, if the client feels he’s paying for footage he believes he already owns (rightly or wrongly, he’s unhappy. If the client feels you’re offering an added service for a small fee (after all it is a bit more work) then you make a bit more money. It’s the art of sales. Sometimes being a good sales person is much better for your business then pushing the “legal” button.

Now if this for a Pepsi ad you could push the legal button but they’d likely have the budget for an alternative to your footage. If it’s a local cable spot and you let the folks editing the spot that you were the shooter . . . just maybe you can get a new client if they do more ads like these.

[Craig Seeman]

Without going into a lot of detail, I’ve found that Quicktime can misinterpret the aspect ratio and I’ve found differences in how Quicktime handles aspect ratios between 7.3.1 and 7.4.x.

It hasn’t impacted FCP yet but I had at least one case where iDVD was making square pixels anamorphic even though NOTHING in the file or program was set to anamorphic. In that case I found that opening and saving the file in QuicktimePro fixed the issue.

Alluding to what Rafael is mentioning and I think he’s on the right track, it’s possible something (Quicktime/FCP) is misinterpreting the “flag” in the file.

[Craig Seeman]

So what’s your agreement with them as a shooter?
Without that, it’s impossible for any of us to discuss this.
Some would argue you own the footage.
Some may argue about issue of the location being shown in the spot.
Some may argue that you have the right to at least charge for dubbing unless you are handing them the master tapes.
Some might ask if this is a public service announcement or is the kid/guardians going to get paid for appearing in the spot.

Much of this revolves around legal right of ownership of the footage as well as the personal and business relationships of the people involved.

[Craig Seeman]

Yes BPAV must be inside another folder and you should update to XDCAM Transfer 2.5.1

[Craig Seeman]

You mean this?
Pro Sony
Looks better. I’m gonna poke around.

[Craig Seeman]

Odd bird that I am, I bought the Sony ECM 680s. It’s a stereo/mono switchable and Sony had $150 rebate if bought within a certain amount of time after purchasing the EX1.

[Craig Seeman]

Sony Clip Browser copies the files from SxS card to hard drive on Intel Mac. It doesn’t convert it. XDCAM Transfer tool is SPECIFICALLY for rewrapping to MOV. Different tool. Different purpose. See above thread on competing (alternative) product to Sony Clip Browser for another option.

[Craig Seeman]

Sony XDCAM Transfer 2.5.1 (rewraps to MOV) works fine with G5.
Only Clip Browser doesn’t work on G5 and isn’t necessary.

[Craig Seeman]

Must be FCP 6.0.2 or 6.0.3. FCP 6 does not have XDCAM EX codec.