Vortex Sony EX3 DVDs
 

I was keen to purchase the Vortex Sony EX3 twin DVD set which has been advertised on this site. Clicking on the link revealed that the DVD price is $125 (£86), which is a bit pricey in my opinion, but I can make an allowance for a specialist item once in a while. But the real downer came through the postage pricing, Vortex want $22 (£15) for international shipping, this makes a grand total of $147 (£101) for two DVDs.

The quality of the sample clips look impressive, but at $147 I think Vortex are ripping their customers off. I ship my own DVD productions from the UK and postage (recorded delivery) to the USA costs me no more than $3 (£2.10).

I did a google search and found that B&H will sell the same DVDs for $99.95 but shipping will add a minimum of $46.25 to the bill. To be fair to B&H they do offer alternative shipping costs, these start at $50.60 and rise to $90. B&H will not get my custom either.

Sorry Vortex, your DVDs look great but your pricing is totally over the top.

i agree.
The Vortex media is a must have video set. I have the EX1 and use as a reference.
However shipping is crazy.
I have bought little items such as 3 filter adapter rings from B & H and have paid $20 USD shipping to Canada. $2-3 might have been reasonable.
The DVD set maybe $10 USD.

The Votex DVD set has been the best purchase I've made. I've been a videographer for 20 years now and I still learned A LOT. Doug answered all the questions I had about using the EX1/EX3 for shooting, editing (Mac or PC) and archiving.

(that sounds like an ad....sorry...but that's the way I feel)

The only thing left unanswered is the HD to SD conversion process for the Mac platform. (see other thread on this).

From what I have seen, there is no question as to the quality of content on the DVD. My issue is with the pricing, especially postage, there is no justification for this excess amount.

Most goods from the States have high delivery costs. The Vortex DVDs are first class and when put against the billable cost of a day's shoot are not that expensive. I bought an EX1 in a hurry and the Vortex DVD. I was up and running on a very important 3 day shoot within 24 hours of viewing the training material. Doug's settings got me through what could have been a very traumatic time.

Vincent, I agree that the postage from US can sometimes be a bit too much, but the discs you´re about to receive will save you ALOT of time (in my world time is money). I came from the Panasonic P2 world and needed a quick overview to master the XDCAM workflow in the quickest possible time. (I even got another company´s DVDs to be sure). The Vortex DVDs will provide an excellent overview of the EX-3.

To buy small or just a few items from B&H isn´t the way to go. Save up and buy more, you actually get your DVDs shipped for free. I plan my purchases and do this all the time.

The different shipping prices possibly reflects the time it will take and whether the shipment has some sort of registration or not. I´ve lost quite a few shipments through the years due to choosing the lower cost shipping price. By paying a bit more you´re safe when it comes to actually receiving the products. I find it strange if Vortex has a "cut" from the shipping price.

Small companies can´t compete with the larger one´s that ships thousands of products through UPS or Fedex. I´m a registrated UPS customer. Once I received a shipment from B&H, but I had to retur one item. When I compared I ended up realizing that UPS charged me 500% more going from Norway to US than the other way around. This is the way the world works, isn´t it? If I like it? Guess!

Best,
-terje

Having spent the best part of £6000 on the camera I guess the $22 postage isn't such a big deal, I just don't like being ripped off.

Normally I would agree that they are expensive. However I know the amount of effort Doug puts into these DVD's. He makes them off his own bat and funds them himself, and uses his own cameras (ie Sony doesn't give him cameras to use). So he needs to recuperate that cost somehow. Given the length and content of them I think his prices are probably quite reasonable. I haven't seen the EX DVD's, but I have seen his PDW-350 DVD and it is top notch.

Simon, I don't buy that line of thinking at all. I also fund my own DVDs and use all my own gear, pay for the production run, designer, etc. I charge £15 for my two hour production.

There is no excuse for overpricing a product, even if it is a limited run item. I would pay $125 for the DVD but object to the excessive postage.

Experience has proven that one gets what one pays for.

You've made your point. If you "think" you're getting ripped off, move on and buy something else.

Fair point - have now moved on :-)

Vortex shipping charges are outrageous. Leaves a bad taste.

No one likes being ripped off. By the same token, no one like being referred to as one who would perpetrate a ripoff either. B&H charges the lowest prices we can for the products we sell and charges the lowest s&h rates we can for the services we provide. I agree -- sometimes for small, light-weight, low-priced items it does not make sense to order internationally from B&H. The suggestion that this item be bundled with other products you need is worth considering.

Henry Posner
B&H Photo-Video

Yes Henry
you must admit that 3 -52 to 55mm stepup rings and $20 USD shipping is a bit much for something that could be put in an envelope. I do understand that it it does cost some to ship international to Canada.

Henry,

I would have made a purchase through B&H but your postage prices are outragous. $46 to $90 for a DVD, come on this is a real kick in the head for any potential customer. I send DVDs all over the world and they cost me $3.00 maximum. Perhaps you should take a look at your postage policy.

I do not want to buy any other goods at this moment, so this is not a consideration.

Thanks for having the courage to respond to this thread, I respect that. When I am in the market for a bigger item, I will certainly consider B&H

I have just heard from Doug. He has registered for DVi but has not had his account confirmed yet so he has asked me to post a response on his behalf.

I hope Doug is able to get register approval soon, he will be an invaluable asset to this forum.

And hopefully he won't have to waste his valuable time having to respond to threads like this one.

No offense, Doug, but I'm surprised you were offended. A simple misunderstanding and someone got their knickers in a knot, which you clarified. Brings to mind The Second Agreement, "don't take anything personally" (easier said than done, I must admit).

$8 for US delivery doesn't appear to be out-of-line and I'm considering ordering the video myself to fill the remaining holes in my understanding.

I look forward to your future contributions to this forum!

Doug,

My intention was never to cause you any embarrassment, or undermine your excellent products. I have every intention to purchase a copy of the EX3 DVD. My point was that the postal charges were far too much for such a small item, yes I know if you put multiple items in one box it will work out cheaper, but I don’t need anything else at the moment.

I ship DVDs out from the UK and send them recorded delivery, these cost me a maximum of $3.00 for postage. I have so far sold over 7000 copies and in that time I have had three copies go missing (South Africa, New Zealand and UK), and I have simply sent them another copy. The South African DVD did turn up and the guy offered to send it back, You are right 99.9% of all customers are honest folk and appreciate the service you and I supply.

A friend did buy a Vortex title for the Sony Z1 and I can vouch for the excellent quality in production and content on your DVDs.

I would also like to publicly apologize to you for any embarrassment that I may have caused you and Vortex.

Yours sincerely

Vincent Oliver
Editor of Digital Photography at photo-i

Vincent, I admire and appreciate your integrity!

Also, keep in mind we don't have VAT here, so the-powers-that-be (and this exlcudes Vortex Media) have to come up with other ways to soak the consumers.

I recently had to send two Kensington card adaptors (very small, very light) to Australia and the postage was outrageous--far more than $22!

I've not had much experience on the selling side when it comes to production runs of the same item. I understand that pricing will be extreme on an item that is a one-off (be it a wedding video or commercial production or feature film) as you must cover all your cost selling it one time. However, I'd think that the selling price for an item that is produced in quantity and sold repeatedly could be more affordable. This pricing compares to a Nintendo DS, a nice pair of shoes, or 3.5 of Ross Herewini's MxR cards! Shipping is what it is - and sometimes that's a killer. Perhaps he could look into "media mail" pricing.

Case in point - Jeff DeMaagd and I really struggled with pricing for EX3 mounts. Priced too low, he'd either have to stop doing it or change the price (which no customers ever like). Priced too high, well, this happens. His goal was to cover his cost outlay and cover the labor, with the initial assumption that at least a couple dozen would sell. These DVD's, being much cheaper and covering two cameras, essentially, should sell at least 100 units, I'd expect. If I were producing them, I'd consider the time/labor of the production and the cost for order fulfillment for each. I'd try to cover my costs within maybe 50% of the first run - in case I was wrong and they didn't sell. This way, even if I sold no more, my costs are covered and I had "billable" hours. Anything beyond that is profit. Too much profit tends to look like greed to the consumer.

Then again, no one is forced to buy and the seller has every right to set their own price. I just personally feel charging more than you need to isn't the best option, but then, I suppose I'm a lousy capitalist. If the right people feel the price is too high, they can compete with their own product. Quality may not be improved (or may be), but one thing for sure - there will be another, cheaper alternative and the original product will either fail to sell or it's price will adjust accordingly. Simple supply and demand economics.

So, to sum up, if the pricing seems high, produce a competitive product. Don't plan to charge as much - maybe half the price or so. Of course, if one is endeavoring to learn, the option to produce their own is perhaps a silly one. But, maybe, after a month or two with the camera and learning its quirks and features, it will be a consideration. Bashing or just complaining about the entrepreneur usually won't accomplish anything productive.

Or the original product, while more expensive, remains the superior product and continues to out sell the cheaper version. Apple is a good example of this. :)

So, you're saying that Apple's outsell PC's?

Yes, that is correct. As of right now there are more Apple computers being sold than PC's. Especially laptops.

I think I came across wrong with my post. I was just poking fun at your blanket statement. I didn't want to start an argument. My apologies. :)

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Not to hijack this into a Mac vs PC thread, but just to clarify, I follow Apple pretty closely and I'm in the Apple software industry. The true statement is that PC's in total outsell Apple's, but per brand, Apple outsells others. For example, Apple outsells HP, they outsell Dell, but they don't outsell HP and Dell combined. There's just too many $300 PC's out there for Apple to compete overall. However I do think that Apple does have a pretty good percentage of the Creative Professionals market (us), some from legacy and some from the ease of use and uniformity of the applications.

Also Macs can run Windows, and in fact run them just as fast as PC's using Bootcamp, Parallels and VMWare Fusion. I do this all the time when I need to run software that isn't available for a Mac or need to test something on Windows, so for me it's the best of both worlds. Don't mind spending a premium. When you add up all the hardware and software costs of what you get with a Mac vs something similar on a PC, the price is competitive.

Not really back to your thread :)

Okay, this will be my last point.... (no more thread hijack.....not responding again no matter what)

All I was trying to say was not that Apple or PC's were better.....not my point at all (although I like Apple). My point was that price isn't always the deciding factor when purchasing equipment. If someone designs a nice product and then someone comes along and copies it and sells it for a lower price, it's up to the customer to decide which product has a better value.

I tire of the "logic" where a cheaper product will always force the competitors to lower their price. I just don't believe that's always the case. I just used Apple as an example to support what I was talking about.

I think Ted's product is great! In fact I'm considering buying a base plate for our EX3 soon. But which ever product I decide to go with, it won't be because it's cheaper, it will be because it's a better product.

International shipping "safely" seems expensive all over.

A single MxR adaptor for the EX is $35 plus $15 for shipping (airmail). So it's almost half the price of the card. Using express courier the shipping jumps to $45 which is more than the card itself costs. I don't think anyone is lining their pockets on these shipping charges. It's expensive.

Its a shame Vortex don't have a reseller in the UK, like creativevideo or Amazon etc.

There is a company on ebay selling it for $99 but postage to the UK is $26 so Vortex isn't that bad for postage.

Then we're on the same page. Excellent. Thank you.

ROFL. You have no idea. :-)

Excellent point. Thank you.

I've bought Vortex EX1 DVDs and it's really 3 hours of know-how about this camera.

Unfortuantely, author spend too much time on workflow issues and doesn't bring out any of major EX series cons.

It's worth money.

I'm sure you used to be able to buy the 350 DVD's from Prestons. Not sure if they have the EX ones though.

Hi, my registration has finally been approved and I’ve been given the green light to start posting. Hopefully I’ll be able to exercise some self-control and avoid the urge to chime in on every topic.

One thing I have always liked about reading through the forums at DVi is that the posts are generally very informative and rarely get side tracked into fringe areas. I think this thread has not typical of what DVi is all about. Nevertheless, at the risk of getting started off on the wrong foot, I feel I must respond to a few things that have been said about my company, Vortex Media.

Simon has already posted my explanation of our shipping charges, so I won’t bother rehashing that stuff. However, I think anyone would be offended if they were accused of “ripping off” customers. Especially when the shipping charges are clearly displayed at the very top of the order form. You can either accept it or you not, but nobody is being ripped off.

How much should a niche product like these DVDs sell for? As any entrepreneur will tell you, that’s always a difficult to thing to determine. If anyone has a crystal ball, I’d love to borrow it. There are several DVDs we’ve done over the years that will never be in the black. That’s just part of the game.

But apparently some people feel that the creator of such a product should charge just a couple of bucks more than what it cost them to create it because “Too much profit looks like greed.” I disagree wholeheartedly with that attitude. The amount of profit (or loss) is of no concern to the customer. The question is, did each individual customer get value for their money? Was the DVD, book, movie, software, music, or whatever you’re buying, worth more than what you spent to buy it?

It’s easy to sit back and say someone else is charging too much, especially when they haven’t even seen the product. I wish everything cost less, but personally, I don’t ever give any thought to how much profit a company is making when I buy something. What difference does it make to me if the company is going to sell 10 copies or 10 million. Whether the company will make $10,000 or lose $100,000 from the venture? Who cares? The value to me, as the customer, is based on what I get out of it of buying the item.

Last month I invested $1400 in new Adobe software. I didn’t look at the three discs that came in the little box (without manuals) and wonder why Adobe wasn’t selling it for only $20. I know why it cost $1400, and I know what I am going to be able to create with that software once I master it. At the same time, I also invested $225 in books to learn the software faster and teach me things I would have never known without them. In my opinion, it was money well spent for the time it has already saved me.

I like to think that Vortex Media’s DVDs have the same value to our customers. For $125 someone gets to learn what it took us several weeks to find out about the cameras. Customers get a very efficient training program in just three hours that would normally take a day or two if you sat in a classroom. They can pause, rewind, and review it anytime. How much is that worth? Surely more than $125. If the situation were reversed, I’d gladly pay $125 (and I have) to get up to speed learning something new. Time is money.

Yeah, instead of buying the Adobe books I could have bought some shoes or a video game, but I’ll earn much more money in the long run by investing in new software and the necessary training to master it faster. How much or how little the writers of those books earn from their labor is no concern of mine because I got my money’s worth out of the books – although I hope they make millions!! I really do.

It’s ridiculous to think that the customer can even judge how much profit is too much profit. The customer can’t know how much profit there is. Does the customer see the 6-8 weeks of time, expenses, and effort that went into producing each video? Do they know how many copies will be sold? Do they know how much of a discount resellers expect? Do they know how much advertising costs? Without all those pieces of information the customer can’t determine how much profit is “too much profit”. Believe me, you could sell thousands of copies of a DVD and still not have the venture be worth the hassle. I’ve been there.

Unlike training videos from other companies, we don’t pick up the camera one day, shoot the video the next day, and have it packaged and ready to go in one week. Vortex Media’s videos take a tremendous amount of time to research, plan, write, shoot, edit, author, replicate, distribute, etc. Unless someone has gone through the process (and knows that fellow professionals will be watching it and picking it apart) you can’t appreciate the pressure and huge number of hours involved to produce a 3 hour program. Fortunately, I love the challenge and enjoy this line of work. My videos aren’t perfect, nor can they fit the needs of everyone, but I stand behind them and will put them up against any competitors. I can’t wait for the next camera.

Sorry for this long-winded monologue. I promise to keep it shorter next time.
Thanks,
Doug

Welcome Doug.
May i say that your EX1 dvd is a must have as far as I am concerned.
Particularly in advance of someone getting the camera, to get an idea how it works.
I keep a copy of the DVD in my camera bag.
Please respond as often as you can.
Additional knowledge base is important.
Bob

No Sweat Doug
 

Just picked up you dvd today for the ex3 @ bhphoto... great product and worth the ducks!

peace

Hi Doug

Thanks for your post and I hope you continue to contribute. I have purchased your DVDs for the Sony HC1 and the Sony EX1. To me they are invaluable and are basically like my user manual to get acquainted with these units in a fraction of the time it would take for me to fiddle and experiment on my own.

I think what you charge is reasonable considering the volume of your sales and the specialized nature of the products. You're producing DVDs for professionals, who are used to paying a premium for things associated with their profession, and the quality of what you produce is excellent compared to some of the other DVD guides I've purchased, which had spotty audio and organization.

I think that we just got off track with the perils of shipping overseas, I've done it and it's a pain. I once sold an item through eBay via US Postal Service airmail and after a month it showed up back on my doorstep, apparently having taken a trip around the world. It was a great deal of trouble to communicate with the customer, and both of us were cordial but anxious of where the item might be. I finally stopped offering to ship items sold on eBay to anywhere outside the US except for Canada because it just wasn't worth the hassle of waiting at the Post Office line, filling out customs forms, extra communication, etc. The fact that you offer this service at all using a reliable method should be appreciated.

Take Care

An apology was posted, I don't think we need to play this tune again.

I will be buying the EX3 DVD set from you as a token of my good will, I wish you the best of luck with all your future ventures.

ps.I hope the DVDs include a section on converting HD to SD, because this is a nightmare for me - I need to get my next DVD on the shelves in February.

Best wishes Vincent

I want to say thank you to every everyone for your feedback and comments. Really, the best form of adversiting someone like me can get is the positive feedback and honest opinions of people like you all. Thanks.

Vincent, to be honest, 'm not sure an apology was even necessary, but I'll accept it and we can move one. Thanks. And there's no need to buy a DVD as token of good will!! Please only buy it if you really feel that you want it. You're under no olbigation to plunk down your money. Don't buy it if you don't think it will be worth the money.

One thing you aren't going to find on the DVD is much information about going from HD to SD. Why? Two reasons:

1) This is a camcorder training DVD, and as far as I’m concerned, that training ends once I have shown you how to import, archive, and organize your clips. Once you’ve reached that point, you’re entering the realm of NLE training not camcorder training. I can't cover FCP, Vegas, Premier, Avid, Canopus, etc. in an EX3 DVD -- especially when the HD options you'll face aren't even unique to XDCAM.

2) I honestly didn’t know if would be an issue to even consider talking about. I’ve had no workflow issues with HD and I didn’t anticipate that other people would even care about HD to SD conversions. That is a total surprise to me.

To be honest, I'm not an FCP expert . I recommend Larry Jordan's FCP books or any of his online training. I highly recommend anything produced by Larry.

Like I said, you won’t find my editing methods discussed on the DVD, so I’ll post them here for anyone to glean whatever they want from them.

First of all, I believe it is very important to edit with Sequence settings that are as close as you can come to matching your final output. In other words, if you aren't going to author a Blu-ray disk or some other HD final product -- then DO NOT edit in HD. Edit in SD. Choose sequence settings that match your output -- not the source footage. Here's how I edited all of my DVDs.

1) I shoot most footage 1080 30P HQ, but I don't think that makes much difference in the final output.

2) I open a new Sequence in FCP and use the "DV NTSC 48Khz Anamorphic" preset.

3) I change the Field Dominance to "NONE"

4) I edit the entire program within that Sequence.

3) When I'm done editing, I then Export a QuickTime movie of the Sequence. I choose "Current Settings" and I do NOT choose to "Make Movie Self-Contained".

4) I then take that QuickTime movie and bring it into Compressor.

5) I then choose the Compressor preset for DVD Best Quality and modify a few of the settings (such as bitrate), but nothing major.

6) After that file is finished rendering, I bring it into DVD Studio Pro and author the DVD normally.

This is the workflow I've been using with XDCAM HD and HDV for over three years. I think most people who have seen the DVDs will agree that they look great. That's it. No big secret. There's no need to overcomplicate things with extra steps, conversions, additional software, etc. It's easy.

I hope that helps.
Doug

Sorry, Vincent, it doesn't. It deals with the EX3.

You still having problems with that?

Edit: Vincent, Doug replied while I was. Dude, you lucked out, big time!

Thanks Doug, I will buy the DVDs because I looked at them in the first place with the intention of purchasing. Thanks also for your HD > SD workflow, I will give this a go.

Jay, I too thought I had this cracked, but I have just looked at the footage I shot over the last two days which have been rendered to DVD (just for quality testing) and they look horrid. I think the subject matter for my first testing covered up a lot of the artifacts.

A saving grace is that the HD footage looks superb, so I have a good base on which to build.