[Mike Cohen]

incidentally, those jackets look cool. I can finally get rid of my Style Auto jacket!

[Mike Cohen]

get this on Digg, Facebook, reddit, gizmodo, etc – where geeks hangout.
Honestly, pro video editors have better things to do(I’m one to talk as I did a Stephen Colbert greenscreen entry 🙂 ).

I would imagine this would be as popular with Macheads as with PC folks who hate Macs.

Mike Cohen (I use both)

[Mike Cohen]

We use external eSATA drives with a USB connection. No big problems. Some machines have up to 4 drives going at a time.
Is it the optimal storage solution? Probably not, but we manage to get our work done pretty efficiently. We do SD and HDV. On HDV throughput is a bit sluggish, but good enough for basic editing. I will use internal SATA drives when more bandwidth is required.
I too have had mixed results with external eSATA cables. Mainly the problem has been inability to unmount a drive without rebooting computer.
Mike Cohen

[Mike Cohen]

Switching the audio input on the PD-170 to LINE results in a very weak level, barely perceptible, in the camera. I would need to adjust the mic input trims on the mixer to get a usable signal on the camera, however these result in distortion and feedback.

This makes me think the output of the mixer is not line level, or a line level that is somehow incompatible with the camera’s version of line level. If the mixer is outputting -10db and the camera is expecting +4, could that be it? The manual does not make it clear what level the line level output actually is.

I know the unbalanced tape outputs via RCA jacks are -10db line level, but not appropriate for camera inputs.

This makes me think that the attentuation of the line level in the camera is lower than the output of the Behringer mixer.
Oh bother.

As stated earlier, the 1/4″ output from the mixer is clean with no electrical noise. There is hiss, but hiss is easy to remove.

On Monday I will test a battery powered field mixer and see what happens.

Thanks

Mike

[Mike Cohen]

Thanks for the very helpful suggestions. I will report back with the result

[Mike Cohen]

Not a big fan of door to door – who is to say you will actually get in to see the decision maker? I guess it depends what type of businesses you are targeting.

[Mike Cohen]

I agree – if just starting out – use on-demand fulfillment.
We do a lot of direct mail to our customer base, resulting in decent orders by phone and website. But we also sell our books using Amazon and book distributors. Sure they take a piece of the action, but the goal is to move product.
With books in particular, we have pallets of merchandise stored off-site in an undisclosed location. But our printer has offered to store the inventory and drop ship our orders – we may consider this.

Mike

[Mike Cohen]

sounds like the plot of “Coming to America!”

These days, the first thing to do when coming up with a business name is check that the domain name you want is available. Then buy every incarnation.

The others are correct – get your show out there and make it awesome. Protect yourself as you go, rather than worrying about it to the point of self-defeat.

And certainly post a link here for us all to see!

Good luck.

Mike Cohen

[Mike Cohen]

Years ago we had a guy who was half sheep – half rock star. Insert American Idol joke here.

He was routinely late for work, he missed flights, occasionally slept at his desk; but on shoots he was great, clients liked him and he did a pretty good job at shooting and editing. Over time his quality improved, but his efficiency never did.

For 2 years we tried to reform him, allowed him to change his working hours to better coincide with his sleeping habits, but every time he showed signs of improvement, he slacked off again. I don’t know if he was intentionally taking advantage of his situation, or if he was oblivious. Whatever the case, eventually we had to give him written warnings and ultimatums. Finally he had to go.

It happens.

The experience taught me a lot about personnel management, HR issues and made me work extra hard to find a good replacement. You sometimes do not know how a new hire will work out until years later, but you try your best to get the right person for the job.

Mike Cohen

[Mike Cohen]

I am late to this thread. I assume that a paying client may come back for another go ’round with a project, if it is not a one-off type of project. If a client is a good one who routinely gives me more business, it is in my interest to keep all of their assets organized and secure.
Obviously every vendor has his/her own standards.

I once e-mailed my narrator about some work he did for me several years earlier, and he had actually backed up his work and uploaded replacement files rather quickly.

Not long ago, as written in a recent blog post, I had a hard drive fail. The one project I needed was lost. I had a partial backup of the premiere project, and a WMV of the final, backed up elsewhere. In anticipation of the client’s eventual return, I took the time to rebuild the project back to its most recent incarnation. That is good business, in my opinion.

Sounds like Greg got a good arrangement for redress of his grievances.

Mike Cohen