Neil Hurwitz
Forum Replies Created
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Hi Walter,
I was referring to your post of June 17th, 2010 in which you said” One of the sweet things about Georgia is the 30% tax break for
the media industry and our expansion will be able to take advantage
of some of that”Your exact words, Not Mine
I am glad to see that your organization was able to get the ear
of your legislature and get some advantageous tax policy past.
Maybe you should hang up the post-biz and become a lobbyist?
Anyway I don’t mean for any of this discussion to be taken
personally and wish you the best of luck in your new spot.
How did the build out go?My point was that the business is not expanding but that the pie
slices are getting sliced and diced smaller and diferently.Neil Hurwitz
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This thread is a replay of the Avid L circa 2000
The bottom line here is that our business is based on Technology
and Talent. The historical price of technology used to be much
higher, Think 7500,000 for a 1″ room, 100,000 for an Avid 8000
in 1995, 35,000 for an Adrenaline in 2004, and now a tricked
out FCP room for maybe 10,000 or a Laptop for 3,000
As this cost of entry fell, Talented people that had limited access
could now jump in with a good mastercard. There is very little mark-up
available on your equipment investment now. This MARK-UP was always
a very very significant portion of the profits of this business.
Profits had nowhere to go but down. A good plumber or electrician
(protected by license requirements) working 40 hours a week is
going to do just as well as an “Editor” A high school Art Teacher
with a Masters and 10 years of teaching is going to do much better after considering the work hours, salary, bennifits and pension.
Lets face it we are now just digital slaves, there is no magic curtain we can hide behind.Now for a comment on what Walter and Bob have said:
Walter, just where did you think that increase in Georgia work came from? Thin Air? No, it was stolen by economic warfare by your state in the form of all sorts of tax breaks AT THE EXPENSE of other states and of other peoples jobs in those states.
So Tell Us
How much “Incentives” you received to build in Georgia?
How big was your suck at the public teat?
Do you feel good about knowing that Interstate Warfare
has hurt your fellow workers in other states?Bob, (My old friend from CMX and Quadra 950 days)
You are dead wrong on how MAGNO was started. Ralph Freidman started
the company in the 50’s as a sound shop for motion pictures.
He was a friend of my father and as a young teen (I’ve got a year on you)I remember going to his place and walking around rooms full of
magnasync dubbers doing sound mixes to 35mm projectors. He put in many many years before making any money, He was not rich and certainly did not give money to his kids to start MAGNO. He just died at an early age and his kids had the good sense not to kill the goose. He also had the good fortune to buy his building on 48th street when Times Square was a truly dangerous place and sell it to
to a hotel chain a few years later and make 10 million.
Way more then he ever made in the sound biz.The bottom line here is that this biz is turning into a comodity
There will be less & declining profit in it for all people below
the line forever. We are expendable. In not too many years video
editing skills will be considered a must have like reading and writing and simple math. Don’t think so? When was the last time you
saw an add for a “Wang Word Processor Operator”?????Neil Hurwitz
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Bottom line here is that Health Insurance costs
are totally out of control.
Our elected officials have not addressed the issue in a sensible
way. Most people here most likely have spent more time selecting
their last monitor than they did selecting their Health Insurance
Policy. This is not because of laziness but because comparitive
shopping is impossible. The fact that Health insurance cannot be
purchased across state lines quarantes a monopoly for a few.
Tremendous waste and duplication of effort. Imagine what would happen to any company we deal with here if they had to set up 50 different entities to sell in all 50 states.
I identify with Bob here, Health insurance is my largest monthly expense. All that said
in a practical sense Choose a high deductable and save the premium
differential, the pay back time will be pretty short and you will
save in the long run. Over ten years ago I increased my Auto
deductable to 1000 and decreased my premium by over 500 and havn’t had a claim since, so i’m 5000 ahead. No matter what happens now
I will still be way ahead.Neil Hurwitz
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I am going to differ with most here and say my advice
Would be to suck it up and deal with the client
albeit on slighty diferent terms. She should insist on a
mechanism where her work is guaranteed to be viewed unadulterated,
even if it means delivering the work in person for a screening.
She got paid in full, so money was not an issue
So here’s my logic;
1. It seems that no one picked up on the fact that she was
REFERRED to this client by a third party.
She runs the risk of blowing up that relationship also.
If the client calls up the referer (we don’t know what that relationship is) and only blabs, whatever, then they might not
feel so confortable doing more referals.
2. Paying clients are not jumping out of the forest so fast
that in these times they should be run over. A little effort
to set the record straight and rehabilitate them is the smarter move.
They might in turn do some referals, stranger things have happened.
I have got to think that there is just some plain swaggering
going on here. In 30 years I have “fired” just two accounts.Neil Hurwitz
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The preliminary specs include a 7,200RPM speed for the Seagate drive, along with a 64MB memory buffer. It has a 6Gbps SATA interface and an average access time of 8.5ms, while producing as much as 32dB(A) of specified noise. The WD drive as a low-power Caviar Green model is slower, at 5,400RPM and with a 3Gbps SATA interface, but has the same 64MB of buffer memory. Its average access time is slightly slower, at 8.9ms, but comes with a quieter 29dB design.
Neil Hurwitz
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All my sugestions have already been given,
although I never tried the 20 dollar bill fix.
However years ago at an IPS meeting I saw a demonstration by
either Spec Brothers or Vidipac (sorry don’t remember which)about a procedure they had for “rebinding” the oxide to the backing.
This was to save historical 2 inch quad tape. you
may want to give them a ring (don’t even know if both are still around) It sounds like you have a continuing tape shedding issue.
I gave up on archiving 1/2 EIAJ tape for just this reason.
Now if you come across some shrunken 16mm film you can but it in an
autoclave for 6 hours then stretch it and you got 6 hours to transferNeil Hurwitz
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You are getting baloney from both sides
I can understand the “Building” wanting a Ins Cert
because you will be using their freight and lobby
I can understand the “client Company” wanting one because you will
be setting up and working in their space.
So 2 certs Max.
Also you are getting hosed by your Insurance Co and or Broker
I always got these for free.
It’s part of customer service or should be.
Break out the old Triple Bid threat for your renewalNeil Hurwitz
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Walter,
We are actually closer in opinion then you might imagine.
My statement should have been “FCP will go away as an Apple Product”
Apple has 40 billion plus in revenue. As someone else has stated here, there are 1 million FCP users (?) so that represents at retail 1 billion to Apple over the course of FCP’s lifetime.
If all those updated to a New Super Duper FCP at lets say 300.00 per
(you and I both know that nobody is gonna want to buy it again and will scream hell and high water if there is no cheap upgrade path)
That represents maybe another 300 million to Apple, A lot of money
to most, but not to a 40+ billion dollar a year company.
We are talking about a small niche piece of software that I just don’t see Apple putting a lot of resources into.
It is what it is.
Like you mentioned there are other products out there that already do what most are asking for, They just cost more. (But way, way, less than a CMX or Kscope) It would be a smart move for Apple to sell this program, They could even restrict by contract,
it’s future development to only run on Apple OS’s Thus insuring future sales of their hardware. As far as Apple having employees
who read these forums and such, that may be true but do they
have the experience and knowledge to know what is being talked about
and the ability to effect any change? If you remember years ago
all Avid users railed against Avid and Avid did nothing until
they saw other fingers deep in their rice bowl. Apples FCP rice bowl is not deep enough or strategic enough for them to care, They, for sure, are more interested in making all think they need an IPAD
more than an extra roll of toilet paper in the bathroom.Neil Hurwitz
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This whole discussion cracks me up.
Do you guys think anybody at Apple is listening?
Apple stock is closing in on 300 a share
and IT’S NOT BECAUSE OF FINAL CUT or any of their other
“PRO APPS” FCP is a side show that is gonna go away.
Take it for what it did for most here, ie: Got you into the BIZ
Now it’s time too move on to other things and maybe latch onto
the other EVIL A’S Their stuff is just as cheap now, Storage
is .10 a gig. So what’s the issue? All this mental gymnastics
of What I want, What Apple should do, What I Want, What Apple
should do, is not impressing anyone except maybe yourselves,
with who can come up with the most arcane set of “I WANTS”
Nobody at Apple cares or is listening, except maybe they want to lance the boil on their butt.Neil Hurwitz