Anyone have any experience with this? I'm toying around with trying this out and selling DVD's onsite, as the crowd I'm marketing to is much more likely to make a purchase there rather than after the fact.

Also any recommendations for a duplicator? Doesn't need a printer, I plan on using an Epson to do that. Not planning on printing more than a hundred disks at max.

I had thought of "on site DVD sales" myself. If your shooting an event with 100 people, far more people would buy the DVD "on the spot" verses taking orders, or hoping they will contact you later.


I was never able to figure out the equipment I would need. Plus, I was never impressed with the DVD cameras. Took too long down loading to a laptop via firewire and burning that first DVD for duplication.

Anyway, I can see a good business opportunity here if the right equipment was available. Maybe something that could be setup in a Van, powered by a 12 volt system. With the shooting, duplication, cases, and sales, it may be too much for just one person though.

With mobile devices and the new technology coming out, maybe skip the DVD, and sell them a video on a flash drive?

Here's the workflow I'd been thinking:

Setup
Macbook Pro 2.5Ghz Core 2 Duo 2GB RAM 1TB HD (Edit)

Macbook Pro 2.4Ghz (?, I think, can't rememeber and it's not in front of me right now) Core 2 Duo 2GB RAM 250GB HD (Compress/Author)

Older Toshiba Pentium M 1.6Ghz 256 RAM(?) (Playback)
40 inch TV (Playback)
4TB G-Tech Raid Drive (Scratch)
1TB LACIE (Backup)
Duplicator
Epson Printer


Workflow:
Shoot on Canon DSLR's
Cards come back to edit station between matches and are dumped onto Scratch drive as folders. Folders are named Team_VS_Team_HEAT.

File Structure:
G-Tech>Footage>Event 1>Saturday>Team_VS_Team_HEAT

Footage is cut together in FCP on the main Pro

Once edit's are done, they are exported through compressor using the 2nd Pro. (This is where I see the biggest problem, it takes forever to do any kind of HD footage on my pro)(also not sure how I can let the 2nd pro compress while still cutting on the main one)

DVD Menu's are made before the event.

A DVD-R (single layer) is authored near the end of the day on the 2nd Pro, that disk is then duplicated to the correct amount.

DVD cases have their design done ahead of time and put in cases
DVD's have their labels printed after they are burned.
After the labels printed it goes in the case and is handed off to the customer.
The TV runs playback of random footage throughout the day to attract people.


So I figure I'd need three people at least. A shooter, someone running the counter doing pre-sales during the day and someone in the back cutting the footage and authoring the DVD's.

I thought about selling flash drives, I like the idea, but I don't know where to look to price those out. I'd want a custom drive that I could brand either for each event or just my company name.

Sounds like your going to run yourself ragged.

You can buy 4 gig Flash Drives by the bulk for $4-$8 each. Cut out one of the staff people above to save over head costs. Sell the a Flash Drive Video at $20 a pop. Then provide them with information as to where they can obtain a edited DVD at a later date.

I learned a long time ago that having employees ends up costing you more than you can make, and good employees end up learning your business, and eventually competing against you.

Keep it simple.

I was actually just doing more research into Flash drives. If I did that though I'd want custom branded ones, but I can't find any that are even reasonably priced ($15 for 100 is the best price I've gotten so far). As far as employees, I'm fortunate there, my sister is actually perfectly suited to doing this, she's familiar with the software and we've both done counter sales since we were kids (family business).

Edit: found a better price, 4 GB sticks with custom branding: 100 for 9.55