Price for DVD Authoring?
 

I'm looking into transferring home movies for someone to a dvd and I'm just curious as to what you guys think might be a fair price? Also, how should I charge, collectively or per hour?

Any and all suggestions are welcomed and appreciated!

pretty straight forward process. Either charge per hour or per tape.

JS

I'm always against selling time.

Most critically, we all have an ever shrinking inventory that's impossible to re-stock.

Also, it means that the practitioner who's inexperienced and slow makes MORE than the practitioner who's experienced and therefore quick.

Don't sell your time. Sell results.

My 2 cents.

Video Transfers and DVD authoring are some of the services I offer. I would say to check around locally at how others are charging and to get an idea of the types of services they provide.

I charge a minmum of $25 per DVD for straight transfer of a single tape. Up to 2 hours can be put onto one DVD. That would include chapters about every 5 minutes and menus with pictures so that they can jump to a particular scene. I have a small charge if they want to have multiple tapes put onto a single DVD. Then if they want a customized DVD I charge $40 which would include up to 10 specified chapters, customized menus and a standard DVD case with a customized label.

For special editing I create a specific quote after meeting with the client. That is for peopel who have say a bunch of videos from their wedding and they want to have a special video put together that plays more like a feature. In general I do charge by the hour for that as is typical for editing services.

The most important thing is to check around for what is normal for your area. I know that where I am, the price range is very large, from $15 for a DVD to over $45. I am about in the middle to lower end but I do it as a side business so I don't have to make it really highly profitable and I don't want this to be the primary part of my business. For me, I concnetrate more on the videography and Editing Services.

A lot of what you can charge also depends on the quality of work you can put out. I ingest using a Panasonic AG-7750 into an Intensity Decklink so I can get pretty high quality tranfers. All of my DVDs come with some form of printed label (inkjet printing onto printable media) and have a very professional look. Also, since I do smaller volume I can spend the time to talk with each client so that I'm sure they get what they're expecting. Places like Ritz and even Costco are doing video transfers now but I've heard some horror stories about lost tapes. One thing to make clear is that since you are doing this basically as a custom job (not batch processed like the bigger houses) you will take the care needed to preserve their precious tapes. Also, if you are comfortable doing it you can offer tape repair services too.

That's just the model I use so don't know if it helps but good luck,
Garrett

Thanks alot for the replies, I really apprecieate it.