Doug Graham
Forum Replies Created
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Well, just order four of the 25 packs! 🙂
Anyway, Panasonic always packages their tapes in boxes of five, so you’ll wind up with twenty of the little cubes no matter what you do.Ten tapes per wedding is a little more than most of the videographers I correspond with burn, but not all that much. If the expense is bothering you, you could re-use the tapes once or twice. I don’t myself, but many videographers feel the economy is worth the very slight extra risk.
Running tapes once through the camcorder while shooting is about the kindest thing you can do to your camcorder. Many videographers also use the camcorder to dump the footage to the computer, so that’s two passes per tape…still a very reasonable usage level. Camcorder heads are generally good for about 2000 hours of use (on average) before needing replacement. If you put that many hours on your DVC-100’s, they’ll probably be ready for retirement. (Assuming 5 tapes per camera per wedding, and two passes per tape, and a full hour of material on each tape, that comes to 200 weddings, or about five years of full-time wedding videography use.)
Of course, lots of us would like to get rid of tape entirely, with all its potential for dropouts, snarls, head clogs, etc. You can always get a Firestore or similar hard disk recorder…but you’ll probably still run a tape in the camera as a backup, just in case.
Regards,
Doug Graham -
I agree with Peter 200%.
Only a small part of the production values your boss is hoping for come from better equipment. By far the larger part comes from experience — knowing HOW to use the equipment both technically and artistically, and how to tell a compelling story with sound and pictures.
DEFINITELY hire a professional production company for at least one project. If you do plan to use them as a “learning tool” so you can do future projects in-house, be sure to tell them that up front. This will probably result in a higher price to you for what will be a “one time” project, since the video company will have no expectation of future business from you, but it’s the honest thing to do.
Another point: Very few people have the range of talent to make a video with high production values as a solo project. Some of the things that will need to be done well include: scriptwriting, storyboarding, lighting, directing, videography, audio, graphics design, editing, music creation/selection, DVD authoring, and business skills such as planning, organizing, budgeting, scheduling.
This is one reason why you see such a long list of credits at the end of a movie. Corporate productions use much smaller teams (and they are growing even smaller year by year), but it’s still rare to find one person who can do EVERYTHING well. It’s almost certain to be a group effort.
On a similar note: Are your video duties part of your job, or are you simply putting your avocation at the service of your company on your own? Good video work takes time, talent and equipment, and you should be getting paid for yours. Talk to your boss about the advisability of establishing an in-house media department, with you as its head (and possibly sole member).
Regards,
Doug Graham -
I use Tape Resources, https://www.taperesources.com
Tell ’em I sent you! That way I get a nice discount coupon from them to use on my next order (full disclosure here!) That’s not a special deal just for me, BTW, they give all their customers the same referral incentive.
Plus, they have good prices and GREAT service. I prefer to call them by phone and talk to the nice people, but you can order right off their website too.
Regards,
Doug Graham -
Not on pause! The camcorder will shut off automatically after about five minutes to prevent undue wear on the tape.
Regards,
Doug Graham -
Yes, you have to transcode the .avi file to MPEG2. You can do that in Vegas, in a DVD authoring program that offers a transcoder, or with a standalone transcoder like TMPGEnc.
See Ed Troxel’s Vegas newsletters for information on what compression settings to use to fit various lengths of video onto a DVD.
https://www.videoguys.com/Vegas_Tips/TTS01-07.pdf
Regards,
Doug Graham -
I work cheaper than DJ. I’d quote them $2,500 plus travel expenses.
Regards,
Doug Graham -
Dave,
In my opinion, a wedding video shot with two cameras, edited digitally, and authored to a DVD, should be priced at $2,000 or more. I even did a spreadsheet analysis on this once.
As for time, editing seems to average 40-60 hours. However, some videographers have the workflow down to a science, and claim 10-12 hours, not including capturing.
If you’re logging and batch capturing, you can speed things up a lot by simply capturing the entire tape to disk, without logging. Once it’s on disk, then chop it up much more quickly in your NLE of choice.
Regards,
Doug Graham -
Solutions:
– use 83 minute tapes
– record in LP mode (not recommended. The use of LP can increase the chances the tape will not play in a different deck or camcorder)
– use a Firestore or other disk recorder
– and the cheapest of all: Simply stagger tape changes between your front and back cameras. Make sure the other camera has a good, steady shot for the 30 seconds or so it’ll take you to change tapes. This requires that you have access to your camera, of course…you might not be able to service an unmanned camera on the altar.Regards,
Doug Graham -
If you have one of those RF modulators that takes the audio and video signal out of your camcorder and sends it as an RF composite TV/audio signal, you can include both the video and audio, and display it on just about any television set.
Most consumer cameras come with an RF modulator, but not many pro cameras do.
Regards,
Doug Graham -
If your camera has a “Push Auto” button, you have the best of both worlds!
Regards,
Doug Graham