I just don't get it. Asking an extra $500 for a simple Blu-ray version of a movie you have already edited? It's an hours work at most plus the render.

Another thing. And a very important one that most people seem to have missed. Brides won't tell you they want a Blu-ray version of their wedding. Well a few will but most won't.

It's completely up to you, as the videographer, and business owner, TO SELL them on it.

The girl comes over and watches some footage at my stand. I have a Panasonic 100Mhz 37 inch 1080P TV, showing a 20 minute HD loop from my Popcorn Hour. It looks stunning, features about 8 weddings and is fast paced.

I already know who the opposition is at the expo. I checked them out just before the show opened and they are using a 26 inch TV and playing an SD dvd.

The bride looks at my footage. She says it looks very clear. I go through my pitch and explain that she is watching HD, and that I offer it to her not as an extra, but part of my standard package. She is impressed. But she has no way of playing it. I tell her she gets 6 SD DVDs as well included in the package, and when she and her husband go out to but a Blu-ray player, as they surely will eventually, it will be there waiting for them. I tell her how her childrens children will be able to watch in crystal clear clarity their granny getting married.

But here is the thing. It's part of my standard package, I tell the bride. "But how much"? she asks. "Well you get what you pay for and when you book me you know you are going to get something special. I pride myself with having many satisfied custom...blah blah blah.

I am happy for them to walk away. No discount on the day to get that deposit. I use no pressure. I don't have to.

I hope I do have opposition, because I know while the bride is at the fair they will check out the opposition and compare footage.

And that is where Blu-ray wins. Not a bride coming up and wanting Blu-ray. But a bride leaving my stand after 5 minutes of talking to me, desperate to have it. It might not even have been in the back of her mind. But once she has seen the footage and compared to my rivals, and I have explained what the benefits are, more often than not she is sold on it.

And that is how I market it. And my diary is up 60% already on this time last year, even in these horrible days of recession.

My rivals, who all offer SD only (and many are friends) are struggling and wel down on last year.

Blu-ray is a golden goose for those willing to grab it with both hands and take a large slice of the market share.

Steve. I can see your sales act is working, since you're booked already for this year. Congrats :-)

I've never been at the trade show, so I'll give it a shot and see how it all looks like and what other are offering. There is one show coming up in March. Will go for sure, pretending that I am the customer :-) It's good to know what you are against before you start fighting for clients.

After this weekend I have a wedding fair every sunday until the end of March. I can't get enough of them because this the sure fire direct way of brides seeing my footage. Far better than a yellow pages/website clip download.

What is highly frustrating is there is a big fair on this weekend local to me that I am unable to get into. Over 7000 brides over two days and one evening. I paid a visit on Friday evening and the place was packed. Its the same 4 vidographers every time. Dead Mans Shoes. I won't get in until one of them croaks. The organisers give first option to those already in the show, regardless of ability and its highly frustrating sitting on the outside looking in, especially when I feel my product is far better all round.

hit the fairs, make sure your stand rocks. BIG Plasma or LCD, PS3 or Popcorn hour media player, at least a 15 minute loop in 1080P or 720P which is lively and up to date. And sell sell sell. Blu-ray is a god send and because some videographers are dragging their feet over it, there's a massive opportunity and those who dare, win.

The main reason I dont have it in my standard package now is that Im one of the only videogs in the area to have already upped my prices this year. By a lot too.
If I was to introduce HD as standard I would need to up my price some more to justify it and I don't think my market can handle it. Things are very volatile in Ireland at the moment.
Basically Im doing fine without it.

...And why on earth would you go HDV at this point? If I was just getting into this I'd certainly be steering clear of HDV.

I want to get into HD (now using PD-170) and seriously consider Sony Z7U - I like dual media recording options etc... What professional handheld camcorder would you recommend? If not HDV, than what?.. I don't know any professional AVCHD camcorder as good as Z7U (Panasonic HMC-150, at least, is not as good, IMHO...)

I want to get into HD (now using PD-170) and seriously consider Sony Z7U - I like dual media recording options etc... What professional handheld camcorder would you recommend? If not HDV, than what?.. I don't know any professional AVCHD camcorder as good as Z7U (Panasonic HMC-150, at least, is not as good, IMHO...)

Uhhh, EX1/EX3, HPX170, JVC's lineup is pretty solid too. I'm not that big on dual media recording, but if I was, "id be looking at something offboard as primary, like the FlashXDR or nanoflash.

Uhhh, EX1/EX3, HPX170, JVC's lineup is pretty solid too. I'm not that big on dual media recording, but if I was, "id be looking at something offboard as primary, like the FlashXDR or nanoflash.

Perrone, you say you don't do weddings, so your focus may be different. I can think of very good reasons to go HDV for an event videographer.

First, tape is a great, tested, cheap, reliable medium. Sony keeps coming up with tape based cameras for a reason.

Second, for those of us who do many events and tend to suffer backlogs, tape is great. You shoot, put it away, and it's there waiting for you when you want to edit.

HDV is a good codec. Really good picture. Sure, it breaks down here and there, but it's proven, easy to ingest, edit and output.

Card based shooting can be problematic for those on the go. We can't stop in the middle of everything to grab a laptop, download a card, check that all is okay, erase, and pop the card back in to continue. Or you can buy lots of cards and continue. Of course, at the end of the day, you have to offload all these cards to hard drives, with backups. With media prices dropping, this is becoming less of an issue, but it's still there.

Now, I'd kill to do all my work on an EX1. But it just doesn't fit the business plan at the moment for the reasons above.

By the way, I have the greatest respect for your opinions, and follow your posts with interest.

Correct, I don't shoot weddings, but I do shoot events. LONG events, of 2-8 hours per day. So let me ask you this. Wedding ceremony lasts 1 hour and 15 minutes. What do you do with your tape cams? On the Ex1, I can roll 2 hours straight without touching the camera with 2 $35 cards. if I buy the more expensive cards, I can roll 4 hours straight.

A $300 investment in cards gives me 8 hours of footage. Yes, I have to dump the footage but I get to do it at 4-6x realtime, unlike tape. I've shot plenty of tape. VHS, Hi-8, miniDV, DVCam. And I wouldn't touch it again if I didn't have to. Yes, Sony keeps making tape cameras. But notice that they are phasing it out on every pro cam they make. it's only the consumer end cams that are keeping tape for now. HDV will also never let you capture full raster images, even if the camera is capable of rendering them. That's a shame to me. You'd really like your recording media to exceed the cam specs. Not lag behind them.

In Aug 2008, I recorded my first big conference with the EX1. Two 6 hour days. I recorded to hard drive, backed up on SxS card. I transferred my media in 4 hour chunks over lunch and after dinner. Transfer and verification took about an hour. An HOUR to transfer and verify half a days shooting. With no deck.

it's a bright, shiny tapeless world out here man... come join us.

Hi Perron,

Look, I agree with you. But it's apples and oranges.

2-8 hours is nothing. I routinely shoot 14-16 hour days. I can't remember the last time I had the luxury of an 8 hour shoot.

One wedding with two cams is easily 8-10 tapes. We don't shoot the ceremony and go home. We arrive at 9am for the groom's prep, and leave at midnight.

Let's say you shoot 40 weddings. At the end of the season, you are perhaps 20 weddings in backlog. That's maybe 100 tapes lying around waiting to be captured. We have no desire to go through the process of transfering all this footage to multiple hard drives (assuming a card based workflow). Shoot it on a tape, put it away, and it's there for you when you're ready.

Yes, "It's a bright, shiny tapeless world out here man", and I'm ready to join you. But it won't be for wedding work for as long as I can help it.

For our corporate stuff, I can't wait!

Fair enoigh Vito. But I am curious. If you didn't have to load tapes into a deck to get ready for edit, would your backlog be so high? I mean shooting a 14 hour day means 15 or more hours just to get STARTED on the edit.

I am also curious if other wedding guys shoot as much. I admit COMPLETE ignorance about the wedding video market, but coming here has been a terrific education for me. Especially as my daughter has a wedding planned in 9-14 months!

-P

Perrone - You and I have gone rounds on other threads about the whole HDV vs XDCAM and I don't wish to dig that one up again. Honestly, i agree with you on the quality issue but for me it is still the price. Like many out there, I run my business on a cash basis. I don't like the overhead of loans out there cutting into my profit margin so the short term difference between a Z5u at $4079 and an EX1 at $6099 or EX3 at $8320 is just over the threshold especially if I am in need of 2 (or more) of them. The other big issue WAS the media cost but with the SDHC workaround that is not such an issue anymore which is why I am leaning toward the FX1000 again and planning to move to XDCAM maybe next year when the price difference might be closer to my range. But as far as to the OP, if you have the money go XDCAM, if not find an HDV solution that fits your budget and accept that XDCAM (or another tech yet to be released...2k?,4k? or ???) should be your target.

Bryan,

What's your thoughts on the new JVC? Bringing XDCam into the $3500 price range on SDHC?

I don't really have any thoughts. As yet I haven't seen any first hand footage of the new JVC, I must say I was severely underwhelmed with the HD110-HD200 cameras (granted i thought they would be the holy grail when they first came out), they are nice cameras but I got to tinker with a colleague's at a live event and was surprised about the quality difference between those cams and mine for color, sharpness, etc. ...then again maybe they were in the wrong hands to achieve their potential... but I digress. I am very partial to the SONY line of cams and find the interfaces pretty intuitive from model to model, the colors pleasing, and the detail nice. I find the Canons and JVCs more cumbersome to my shooting style but i have not had a chance to examine the GY-HM100U yet. And in fact my HVR HD1000u just got me big job when the competition was shooting JVC GY-DV5100. Hard to imagine that this $1400 HDV cam beat a $7500 Pro DV cam but the client agreed that my footage was better (both delivered in SD on DVD)

What do you know about the new JVC?

EDIT: Quick note to JVC owners, i am sure you love your camera and get great footage. I have not had good experience with JVC and am loyal to my SONY cam's but JVC would not be in this business if they did not make a good product. So by all means if you shoot JVC in any model and are making a living they are good for you. No disrespect just an opinion.

Hi again, Perrone,

If you didn't have to load tapes into a deck to get ready for edit, would your backlog be so high? I mean shooting a 14 hour day means 15 or more hours just to get STARTED on the edit.


I get where you are coming from, but the capturing is not the problem, it's the length of post production.

I find capturing tape no trouble, but I try to streamline as much as possible. I use two computers with external drives, and can capture with one while editing on the other. Before I had two computers, I would just capture during downtime. You can't edit 24 hours a day, so that's lots of capture time.

I am also curious if other wedding guys shoot as much.

Personally, I think I shoot less than most. We do a lot of one camera weddings, during which I might produce five tapes. Two camera shoots, 8-10 tapes.

Hope your daughter's wedding goes off without a hitch!

Don't know about the cam, but am pretty pleased with the codec. The 1/4" CCDs are disappointing, but for the money...

If they put decent glass on it, I think it competes favorably with the HMC150, and gets past the CMOS issue of the EX1. Put a 35mm adapter and rails on it and you still come out ahead of the EX1 on price, with the same codec, interchangeable lenses, and shooting on factory approved SDHC.

Personally, I think I shoot less than most. We do a lot of one camera weddings, during which I might produce five tapes. Two camera shoots, 8-10 tapes.



OUCH!! Now I see why you guys charge so much!


Hope your daughter's wedding goes off without a hitch!

Thanks but the odds are zero. Beach wedding in Florida... Springtime. Ever been to Florida in April? :) I might make some money selling raincoats and golf umbrellas!

Personally, I think I shoot less than most. We do a lot of one camera weddings, during which I might produce five tapes. Two camera shoots, 8-10 tapes.

Vitto, 8-10 is normal for me as well. Two cams with 4-5 tapes each. 2nd cam actually goes through less tapes since some moments I just use one camera (i.e. photo session, or preperations).

Tapeless solutions are needed when doing SDE's. Can't imagine capturing 2-3 tapes from two cams just to put together 5 mins vid.

OUCH!! Now I see why you guys charge so much!



Thanks but the odds are zero. Beach wedding in Florida... Springtime. Ever been to Florida in April? :) I might make some money selling raincoats and golf umbrellas!

Heh, I lived in Brevard Co for 15 years .... just avoid the 2-5pm afternoon shower time. And then the evening shows. And then the .....

Regarding shooting at weddings, I go through about as much tape as well. My big wedding from last April saw me shoot through 11hrs of footage for 3 cams. Essentially, if something is happening, I'm rolling. I don't roll for just reception "eating" time, but that is almost always a chance to get some good b-roll of tables, decorations, etc, so I'm still rolling. Sure does fill up HDDs fast though.

Ok so here's what I'm going to do for my market.

I don't have a lot of free cash, but I'm going to buy a Samsung 32" HDTV (720p) ($500 display model from BH) and an Apple TV ($200 refurb from Apple) right now. I'll test it out and let you know what I think about the Apple TV route. It should look decent on a 32" TV. I know a lot of people have larger TVs but I do have budgetary concerns right now.

I'm going to sit on the Blu-ray option until I have a little more cash flow going. Looks like that Lacie burner with Toast bundled is about $450, Samsung BD player is about $200, plus I didn't realize how insanely expensive the discs are - +/- $15 a piece? The printable ones I saw were about $30/piece. Am I looking in the right place?

I'll be offering both routes as options, and let you know what I learn.

...plus I didn't realize how insanely expensive the discs are - +/- $15 a piece? The printable ones I saw were about $30/piece. Am I looking in the right place?

No.

Imation Memorex 25GB BLU-RAY Disc Optical Media: Compare Prices, View Price History and Read Reviews at NexTag (http://www.nextag.com/Imation-Memorex-25GB-Blu-631588354/prices-html) ($5.31 each)

Memorex BLU-RAY Write Once 4X 25GB BD-R Single Layer Media: Compare Prices, View Price History and Read Reviews at NexTag (http://www.nextag.com/Memorex-Blu-ray-Write-615614721/prices-html) ($6.57 each)

Amazon.com: Verbatim 96769 25GB 4X Branded Blu-Ray Disc (10pk Spindle Box): Electronics (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001MYT5OK/ref=asc_df_B001MYT5OK702826?smid=A2YLYLTN75J8LR&tag=nextag-ce-tier5-delta-20&linkCode=asn) ($7.49 each)

The first 2 options are cheaper than my minisDV tapes and hold 2 hours of HDV material, plus an extras section with a 720p mp4 or VC-1 copy. I put an hour of 1080p HQ EX1 footage on one disk plus a 1080p VC-1, and a 1080p mp4. Try that with tape!

[edit]

Burner:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/559090-REG/LaCie_301828U_d2_Blu_ray_Drive.html

I showcase my HD work on a 32" LG with a Western Digital TV. I sell as part of all my packages Blu-Ray discs although I am not currently able to produce Blu-Ray discs. I render my edits in both SD & HD, back-up and store until I am able to deliver in HD. I am not going to pay current prices for Blu-Ray out of principal, it's a rip-off, when prices go down I'll burn all my projects to Blu-ray and have them sent to all my HD clients.

I am not going to pay current prices for Blu-Ray out of principal, it's a rip-off, when prices go down I'll burn all my projects to Blu-ray and have them sent to all my HD clients.

Two questions if I may:

1. At what price per disk will you adopt Blu-Ray?

2. At what price per disk did you adopt DVD?

Two questions if I may:

1. At what price per disk will you adopt Blu-Ray?

2. At what price per disk did you adopt DVD?

at $5 per disk - it's a very cheap solution. Especially that the customer gets only 1 copies of BR.

I went poking around some old PC Magazine articles to get a better handle on this Blu-Ray pricing from a historical perspective.

This article sums things up nicely:

DVD+RW: He Who Ships Last, Ships Best - DVD+RW: He Who Ships Last Ships Best - Reviews by PC Magazine (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,23749,00.asp)

In the winter of 2001, some 6 years after DVD was introduced to US shores, the average recorders were hovering around $650 (Pioneer's was $995 list) and the price of a single layer, single sided DVD blank was $16. We've been able to buy Blu-Ray media for less than half the time, the burners are less 1/3 to 1/2 what DVD burners were by the same period in their history, and the disks are 1/3 the cost of what blank DVDs were at the same period in their history.

I know for some people it will NEVER be good enough. But in historical perspetive, Blu-Ray is KILLING DVD from a price-to-author standpoint when viewed in historical perspective.

Another curious thing, is that DVD+- DL are around $1.50-$2.00 each for 8.5GB. On a per gig basis, Blu-Ray is nearly the same cost or just slightly more. That is incredible when you think about it.

at $5 per disk - it's a very cheap solution. Especially that the customer gets only 1 copies of BR.

Exactly. Tell the customer, that a Blu-Ray copy costs an extra $10 oor $20, take 100-200% profit off the top, and as prices fall, your margin gets bigger. How can you lose?

...Imation Memorex 25GB BLU-RAY Disc ($5.31 each)
Memorex BLU-RAY 4X 25GB BD-R ($6.57 each)
Verbatim 96769 25GB 4X Blu-Ray Disc ($7.49 each)


Perrone - I have been offerring BD sells for a yr now but had no takers. I have been watching suppliers for pro grade BD-r media (not just data media) and am having difficulty finding them. I do not want to go back to labels and find labels very tacky. Have you (or anyone else) found any blank BD-r media that is the BD-r cousin of the Taiyo Yuden Watershield inkjet hub printable? The few printables I have found were in the $30 range, and I have yet to see any with watershield or scratch resistance on the printable surface. Maybe I am not looking in the right places... Also what about the issue of player compatibility? When you deliver to a client how do you account for player compatibility? Putting it all on the end user seems like a dead end with the client's I have that are best candidates for BD...

At what premium are you offering Blu-Ray? Maybe that has something to do with it?

As for pro-grade media, I don't think you are going to get closer than Sony. There just aren't that many producers of Blu-Ray media yet, and a HUGE portion of that supply is going to commercial pressers for Hollywood releases. Many studios are converting their entire back catalogs and bringing them forward. Blu-Ray will be in short supply for us for quite some time.

Look how many years it took Taiyo Yuden to get to us. We are still in Blu-Ray infancy by comparison.

Player compatibility right now is pretty good. Far ahead of where DVD was at this stage. Remember the dvd-r / dvd+r / dvd-ram wars? Encore seems to have ut's issues, but Sonic, Architect, Nero, etc. all seem to be doing fine. The first gen players were problematic, just like with DVD, but things seem to be sorting out.

If I was doing this for business, I'd have 5-10 BDRE test discs to let clients try at home first. If they work, cut a real one and get the rewitable back.

No one is saying that this is a panacea. It's not. But it's good, and it's the best we will have for some time. We will likely see 6-10 layer disks in 3 years or so. And by that time, these single and double layer disks will be dirt cheap.

As mentioned, I made the jump to Blu-Ray for archival reasons, not delivery. Delivery is a nice byproduct. I just didn't want the issues of tape any more.

-P


Perrone - I have been offerring BD sells for a yr now but had no takers. I have been watching suppliers for pro grade BD-r media (not just data media) and am having difficulty finding them. I do not want to go back to labels and find labels very tacky. Have you (or anyone else) found any blank BD-r media that is the BD-r cousin of the Taiyo Yuden Watershield inkjet hub printable? The few printables I have found were in the $30 range, and I have yet to see any with watershield or scratch resistance on the printable surface. Maybe I am not looking in the right places... Also what about the issue of player compatibility? When you deliver to a client how do you account for player compatibility? Putting it all on the end user seems like a dead end with the client's I have that are best candidates for BD...

Don't get me wrong, i am supper excited about the BD revolution and predicted it killing HD-DVD long before HD-DVD died. I have not been pushing BD because I am shooting HD with the 1000u, but I am advertising BD. I don't offer a price point for it because I have had no inquiries yet. This market area is very slow to adopt new tech except at the very high end market and that is not where I am competing right now.

By pro-grade media, I was more referring to the imaging surface rather than the burning surface. So far i am only finding BD-r media sub $30 with a data printed surface (read as write on with a sharpie) and to get inkjet printable surfaces I am finding prices in the $30+ range for 25GB BD-r.

I m with you full-bore on the rapid rollout and am blown away how the prices are coming down-especially compared to how DVD came around.

I love your archival and data mangement solution and I applaud you here, i was just hoping that since you are in deep you might know where to get the printables at a better rate. (I really hate labels.)

The main market segment I am working with that will have bluray interest soon is my dance segment. And for my main client, this means 350-400 discs. (4 nts with 75-125 dancers per nt) With that many clients in one push I am really worried about player compatibility. Again, i know we are lightyrs ahead of where we were with DVD at this point but I was wondering if you knew of a good solution.

Exactly. Tell the customer, that a Blu-Ray copy costs an extra $10 oor $20, take 100-200% profit off the top, and as prices fall, your margin gets bigger. How can you lose?

I do something like that when customer wants extra sets of DVD's. Normally I include 3 sets (I write "sets" because Polish weddings are like "Titanic" movie - loooooooooooooooong). Anything over this is $20 per set extra. Each set has 3 dvd's, so this way I can cover my costs of printing and labeling.

Bryan, I was discussing media with a client of mine and he did a little searching for me.

BD-R 25GB 2X DataLifePlus White Inkjet Printable 25pk Spindle at Wholesale - Americal.com (http://www.americal.com/pd/VER96661.html) -- inkjet printable, $11.59/disc

TDK Blu Ray Disc 25GB 4x Inkjet Printable, Hub Printable - Recordable BD-R - Increments of 25 at Discount Prices (http://www.tapeandmedia.com/detail.asp?product_id=BD-R25PWX25CBA), -- inkjet printable, $10.70/disc

I used TDK exclusively for my inkjet printable DVD-Rs, so I'm going with that when I make the jump.

Phillip- thanks for the link. Those are much better prices than i was seeing in my searches. I also am a fan of TDK dvd-r media. i particularly like the silver inkjet hub printables, but find the surface a little fragile (I know this is a little off topic) but have you used these and had similar experience? If you know a fix or comparable disc that is scratch/water resistant please PM me?

And now we return you to the thread in progress....

Bryan,

What's your thoughts on the new JVC? Bringing XDCam into the $3500 price range on SDHC?

Let me first say that I have not had any hands on with this camera and so the following statements are impressions but are not grounded with personal experience. I spent the last couple days looking at reviews on this product and I am a little underwhelmed with it for my needs. It does look like an awesome cam. The best review (IMHO) was at this link http://www.thedvshow.com/first-look-at-the-jvc-gy-hm100/ and here in the forums. It is a strong entry into the XDCAM market especially if you are a FCP user. Obviously to deliver XDCAM at the $3500-$4000 price point some sacrifices had to be made. From what I can tell, the sacrifices were made in the glass and chips. Like the HD1000U, it only has one ring on the lens, and it has smaller sensors than the SONY XDCAM EX cameras. The XLR inputs are nice but it looks like the inputs are a hard-mounted adapter that plugs into the camera via a mini plug would be a little hesitant there too. Don't get me wrong it has some really nice capabilities but i would be a little hesitant to make it my a-roll. I also wonder about battery life given the cam is CCD based.

For me, I am heavily invested in the Sony line of cams and the FX1000/Z5U would mesh nicely with my batteries chargers and other equip and make a nice lead to my HD1000U. Keeping within the same brand is always a good idea when possible. My hope at this point is really to run this year with HD1000U as b-roll and Z5u as lead cam. Save and sell my HDV kit next year and replace with 2 ex cams.

I would imagine the JVC offering would complement well with someone who is shooting JVC HDV already, especially if there are shooting the 200 or 250 versions since they can do 1080...but for me it would mean investing in 2 of them and a boatload of new accessories. So that is my thoughts on this cam for my needs.

I did use the silver ones one time, but I actually decided to go with the white - not sure why, I guess I just felt that the colors stood out better or something. I haven't found a Blu-Ray disc yet with that, but I would guess TDK either already does or will, since they did for their DVD-Rs.

Bryan, I was discussing media with a client of mine and he did a little searching for me.

I also use Taiyo Yuden Watershield DVD's and the BD disc's mentioned still does not offer watersheild technology, there is no way I can deliver a product to a client if it does not offer this. As for my acceptable price range, I have no limit as the customer ultimately pays, I would personally like to see 30-40% price reductions before I switch. I invested a lot of money into DVD back in the day and prices plummeted a year after, I'm waiting for that and it will happen pretty soon, early adopters always pay for the development of technology, not to mention slow speeds.

When I can buy Watershield or Thermal BD disc's locally I'll go right ahead. I'm giving Blu-Ray till end off this year to mature after that I'll be forced to invest no matter the cost.

Very sage advice. Thats been said before but not quite so well.


I think the answer of HD delivery is going to be different for everyone. I firmly believe it's bad business to just "give away" the technology. If you build the extra costs into your packages, then that's great, but if you're throwing it in as a freebie then I think that's probably a bad idea and just sets a bad precedent. Half the problem in our industry is we have newbies popping up all the time who give practically everything away, and it stunts the growth of the industry. It also conditions brides to think that many things aren't of high value, since so many of the upstarts are just giving those things away.

When I first started out, I mostly charged for what I provided. I made mistakes, though, like anyone else. One of the first of these was in travel. I didn't charge a penny for travel. I thought it was a great idea to get a leg up on my competition. The trouble is, when you start doing destination weddings and you aren't charging for travel, you're losing money. I might have booked more destination weddings than my competition, but I wasn't making as much as I needed to since I was spending so much money on travel. I would have been better off just booking local weddings and turning a better profit.

So whether or not you decide to offer an HD solution, I would encourage everyone to look at how you offer it carefully. Avoid the temptation to just give it away for free, because that only hurts your own business and the rest of the industry.

As for me, I switched to HD this past year, fully expecting to have some interest from couples. More than 6 months later and I haven't had a single couple interested in HD. In fact, roughly 50-75% of the couples I meet with don't even own an HDTV. That absolutely shocked me. So make sure you know your market when you're making this decision.