[Jeffrey F. krepner]

Everyone,

Thanks for the input and advice–It’s always wonderful to get feedback and different perspectives. I ended up telling them my hourly/day-rate and advised them to figure out how many projects they’ll need me on and to base how many days per week on that. If they are willing to “put me on the pay-roll” for 1/2 days per week, with flexible deadlines then everything should work out. If they pay me my rate for that day or two, then I’ll wash and wax their car if there isn’t any video to cut that week, as long as they allow time on the weeks that get busy or allow me some “comp time” to deal with other clients that have more pressing/dead-line specific projects. I’m waiting to see what they say.

Thanks again.
Jeff

[Jeffrey F. krepner]

How busy I am? I have one client, client #1, offering me a steady amount of work editing at the client’s facility 2-3 times per week. The client that wants to “put me on the payroll”, client #2, is an on/off again client that gives me work in waves. They are a fun client to work for and I like working on their material. Plus, I get to work at the home studio which is always a bonus.

I think the key will be to figure out how much work they need done and figure out how many days per week we think it will take. Example: If next year they want 12 1-hour programs cut, with graphics, sound, and DVD authoring, then perhaps I can do that working 1 day per week as long as there is no set-in-stone deadlines. If they need the program done by so-and-so date, then I’ll need as much heads up as possible to make arrangements with client #1 to get enough time booked back-to-back to finish client #2. Yikes. Sounds confusing.

[Jeffrey F. krepner]

Thanks for the fast response, Peter! I sort of figured it out as you replied. … still learning my way around in FCP.

I have 18 DVDs to burn, all the same except one stinking end title of different phone numbers. Is there any other short cuts to automate such tasks?

Thanks.
Jeff

[Jeffrey F. krepner]

Speaking of the devil… then how does one go about exporting (say 18 different sequences) using batch export if MPEG2 is no longer an option. As far as I can figure, I can’t set Compressor to batch export more than one sequence. Is that correct? Seems like a giant step back.

Thanks in advance.
Jeff

[Jeffrey F. krepner]

I ended up ordering from Mac Mall (I hope that was a good thing) and I paid for overnight air so I can get setup by this weekend for an edit next week. It was a little cheaper than apple.com and I don’t get charged sales tax… but then again, with shipping it all works out in the wash.

Thanks everyone.

[Jeffrey F. krepner]

Last question today: what is the average delivery time buying from Apple.com, assuming I don’t add any components that delay delivery? Should I just haul my lazy butt to a brick and mortar Apple store? I assume the price is set and no one offers any “deals” on Macs. Is this correct?

Thanks again guys.

Jeff

[Jeffrey F. krepner]

Targa cards worked with so many NLEs (or, was it so many NLE’s worked with Targa cards?), but Razor was my favorite.

Thanks for the words of encouragement about FCP!

Jeff

[Jeffrey F. krepner]

Dave, excellent point, all of the peripheral stuff ends up costing more than the machine anyway. I just looked at your COW profile and see that you mentioned a Targa board… is it functional? Ah, I miss my old Targa 1000 Pro. Did use Speed Razor by any chance?

Thanks everyone. I’ll have more questions and I hope I can one day answer some too.

Jeff

[Jeffrey F. krepner]

Tony: Please tell Steve, that I didn’t mean to cause problems w/ his j-o-b. Also, tell him to fix Disney.

Peter: Thanks for the info, I’m switching from another program that doesn’t use GPU for anything as far as I know. I think I might heed your advice and hop now, I might not be able to wait for the next round of hardware releases anyway. I’m sort of leaning to the 2.66GHz procs since they seem *almost* as fast as the 3.0GHz’s and cost $800 less.

Charlie: I saw that too. I wonder what the new chips will retail for? Maybe the plan should be go with the 2.66 or 3.0 now and perhaps upgrade procs in year.

With that said, doesn’t it seem a bit steep for the 3.0GHz model? I mean, $800 bucks for the additional 300MHz seems like it could be better spent on more RAM, better GPU card, Hard drives, or put towards AJA/Blackmagic I/O card. Don’t get me wrong, the new Macs are very affordable compared to, say, a dual Xeon Dell, but it seems like a high premium for a small jump in performance. OR, am I just being a cheapass?

Question: for Final Cut Studio, assuming I don’t need to drive two 30″ screens, would I see any performance increase using the upgraded
ATI Radeon X1900 XT over the stock NVIDIA GeForce 7300?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Jeff

[Jeffrey F. krepner]

“Bend Or Break”
“Bend Or Break: The Human Joints or Joints of the human body”