HD upcharge? at DVinfo.net

Keith Zdrojowy · February 5th, 2008, 05:19 PM

I've only been in the field for a couple of years now doing this on the side. I can only afford the one camera that I own which is in SD. HD is something that I want to get into, but I can't afford the equipment. My new plan is to create an upcharge for HD weddings and rent the cameras.

My question is for those out there that are doing HD weddings, what is the cost difference you have between SD and HD production? i.e. how much extra are you charging for HD. $500, $1000? Let me know.

Andre Tira · February 5th, 2008, 08:05 PM

I shoot and edit in HD and then let the B&G decide if they want an SD DVD or Blu-Ray. If SD, there is no charge. If HD, its $200 for the first disc and $100 thereafter.

Craig Terott · February 5th, 2008, 09:42 PM

It takes more time to edit in HD. Longer rendering times and then downconversion. I can produce a purely SD video much faster, and I edit too many weddings to have time to edit/render an HD version if there may be no buyer for it.

I offer HD for 1K more than my bottom tier package, and $500 more than my middle tier package.

Craig Terott · February 5th, 2008, 09:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andre Tira

I shoot and edit in HD and then let the B&G decide if they want an SD DVD or Blu-Ray. If SD, there is no charge. If HD, its $200 for the first disc and $100 thereafter.

I produced 10 HD weddings last year. All my customers have their SD version. I'm in a bit of a holding pattern before I start burning Blu-Ray. The disc prices are too high. I don't see printable ones. The burners for Mac, ummm I think I found one. I consider myself a pioneer for HD weddings but you (Andre) must be a couple steps ahead of me.

What program are you using to author BluRay?

Blake Cavett · February 5th, 2008, 10:16 PM

Yeah, this inquiring mind would love to know how author to Blu-Ray from a Mac...

Matt Trubac · February 5th, 2008, 11:06 PM

For burners... I have heard good things about the Blu-Ray drives from FastMac.com and authoring with Adobe Encore CS3. I have heard that Encores compression isn't great, so I would use Compressor for that if you have it.

Kevin Shaw · February 5th, 2008, 11:48 PM

If you're renting the equipment you'd probably need to charge at least $1000 to make it worthwhile, but you may find that a tough sell for most wedding video customers. In my area an HD upgrade price of ~$500 is typical (for those who own the equipment) and seems fair for the amount of extra work involved.

Regarding Blu-ray delivery, the cost of blank discs is negligible compared to overall wedding video prices, and burners are selling below $400 some places. Use Adobe CS3 to author the menus, and if you're on a Mac use Toast to actually burn the discs. Be sure to buy at least one BD-RE disc for testing projects before doing a BD-R burn.

Andre Tira · February 5th, 2008, 11:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Craig Terott

I produced 10 HD weddings last year. All my customers have their SD version. I'm in a bit of a holding pattern before I start burning Blu-Ray. The disc prices are too high. I don't see printable ones. The burners for Mac, ummm I think I found one. I consider myself a pioneer for HD weddings but you (Andre) must be a couple steps ahead of me.

What program are you using to author BluRay?

I use Adobe Premier Pro CS3 on a PC and author with Encore. Its probably the weakest software out of the CS3 lineup. It freezes too much and have to save often.

To be honest, I have yet to sell a Blu-Ray disc. I guess non of my clients have upgraded yet. But what I tell them is that I keep a master copy and if/when they decide to upgrade to HD, they can come back to me and order a blu-ray copy.

Peter Jefferson · February 6th, 2008, 02:38 AM

$200 to $500... ?

No wonder the wedding video industry is falling on its face. The value of what we do is devalued by the videographers themselves before it even hits the shelves.

Craig Terott · February 6th, 2008, 02:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter Jefferson

$200 to $500... ?

No wonder the wedding video industry is falling on its face. The value of what we do is devalued by the videographers themselves before it even hits the shelves.

I start at $2K and I have no packages below that.

For HD they have to spend at least $2,895.

I agree, $200-500 more for HD is not worth it for me.

Kevin Shaw · February 7th, 2008, 09:08 AM

The cost of producing a wedding video in HD today is about the same as it was to do SD a few years ago, so an upcharge of $500 or so during this transitional period would work fine if most customers were willing to pay it. Do the math...

Michael McQueen · February 7th, 2008, 10:28 AM

has anyone used the lacie bluray burner with a mac? i shoot everything in hd and then downrez in export.

Craig Terott · February 7th, 2008, 07:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kevin Shaw

The cost of producing a wedding video in HD today is about the same as it was to do SD a few years ago, so an upcharge of $500 or so during this transitional period would work fine if most customers were willing to pay it. Do the math...

I dissagree because the video has to be produced in two formats (HD & SD) - not just one. First in HD and then downconverted to SD, and authored in both formats - and add to that the much slower rendering/encoding times for HD.

Some day when I get customers that tell me they only require the HD version, then that will simplify things. I'm looking forward to that day.

Jeremiah Rickert · February 7th, 2008, 10:28 PM

...oops...wrong spot.

Jon Omiatek · March 16th, 2008, 07:43 PM

I have done a bunch of HD projects in 06 & 07, at least 50 of them. Only 4 of them have asked for it on Bluray now. I must say that if you are only getting an extra $500 to do both formats, it's hardly worth the effort. I charged them $500 more for HD. Tape alone in 06 was $10 each. I usually shoot three camera weddings and I would say $100 of that was just tape.

Once I was done with the SD Delivery. I printed the wedding to tape for transfer to bluray later. The encode time for me was about 3.5 hours for every hour when going to SD DVD. Now I am using Adobe CS3 and Premiere and it's taking a very long time to delivery HD on Bluray. It takes an hour per disc to burn a bluray dvd and that doesn't include the time to create the dvd. I would say I have about an hour in creating a dvd menu and chapters and the rest of the time would be eaten up with encoding. I imported my tapes into Premiere and exported them to encore. It takes my 3.2 Dual Core with Raid 0 raptors about 1.25 hours to encode one hour of the time line exported to Encore. I will keep notes on my next project and post how long it takes for all the encode times and burn.

This weekend I built 4 Bluray DVDs filled with about 23gb on each disc, two seperate weddings. I charged the client $30 per bluray dvd plus the orginal upcharge for HD.

My HD packages now are $1000 higher than SD. I have the new sony EX1 so my hd will now be 1920x1080 vs 1440x1080.

On a side note, Encores ability to make a flash site out of the dvd/bluray project is pretty sweet!

February 5th, 2008, 05:19 PM	#1
Keith Zdrojowy Tourist Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Shelton, CT Posts: 2	HD upcharge? I've only been in the field for a couple of years now doing this on the side. I can only afford the one camera that I own which is in SD. HD is something that I want to get into, but I can't afford the equipment. My new plan is to create an upcharge for HD weddings and rent the cameras. My question is for those out there that are doing HD weddings, what is the cost difference you have between SD and HD production? i.e. how much extra are you charging for HD. $500, $1000? Let me know.

February 5th, 2008, 11:06 PM	#6
Matt Trubac Major Player Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Grand Rapids, MI Posts: 286	Mac and Blu-Ray For burners... I have heard good things about the Blu-Ray drives from FastMac.com and authoring with Adobe Encore CS3. I have heard that Encores compression isn't great, so I would use Compressor for that if you have it. __________________ Matt Trubac

February 7th, 2008, 10:28 PM	#14
Jeremiah Rickert Major Player Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Newberg, Oregon Posts: 494	Concert Question... ...oops...wrong spot.

February 5th, 2008, 08:05 PM	#2
Andre Tira Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 83	I shoot and edit in HD and then let the B&G decide if they want an SD DVD or Blu-Ray. If SD, there is no charge. If HD, its $200 for the first disc and $100 thereafter.

February 5th, 2008, 09:42 PM	#3
Craig Terott Major Player Join Date: May 2005 Location: Glendale, AZ Posts: 691	It takes more time to edit in HD. Longer rendering times and then downconversion. I can produce a purely SD video much faster, and I edit too many weddings to have time to edit/render an HD version if there may be no buyer for it. I offer HD for 1K more than my bottom tier package, and $500 more than my middle tier package.

February 5th, 2008, 10:16 PM	#5
Blake Cavett Major Player Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Madison Posts: 330	Yeah, this inquiring mind would love to know how author to Blu-Ray from a Mac...

February 5th, 2008, 11:48 PM	#7
Kevin Shaw Inner Circle Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Sacramento, CA Posts: 2,488	If you're renting the equipment you'd probably need to charge at least $1000 to make it worthwhile, but you may find that a tough sell for most wedding video customers. In my area an HD upgrade price of ~$500 is typical (for those who own the equipment) and seems fair for the amount of extra work involved. Regarding Blu-ray delivery, the cost of blank discs is negligible compared to overall wedding video prices, and burners are selling below $400 some places. Use Adobe CS3 to author the menus, and if you're on a Mac use Toast to actually burn the discs. Be sure to buy at least one BD-RE disc for testing projects before doing a BD-R burn.

February 6th, 2008, 02:38 AM	#9
Peter Jefferson Inner Circle Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Aus Posts: 3,884	$200 to $500... ? No wonder the wedding video industry is falling on its face. The value of what we do is devalued by the videographers themselves before it even hits the shelves.

February 7th, 2008, 09:08 AM	#11
Kevin Shaw Inner Circle Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Sacramento, CA Posts: 2,488	The cost of producing a wedding video in HD today is about the same as it was to do SD a few years ago, so an upcharge of $500 or so during this transitional period would work fine if most customers were willing to pay it. Do the math...

February 7th, 2008, 10:28 AM	#12
Michael McQueen Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Greensboro, NC Posts: 41	has anyone used the lacie bluray burner with a mac? i shoot everything in hd and then downrez in export.

March 16th, 2008, 07:43 PM	#15
Jon Omiatek Major Player Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Columbus, Ohio Posts: 755	I have done a bunch of HD projects in 06 & 07, at least 50 of them. Only 4 of them have asked for it on Bluray now. I must say that if you are only getting an extra $500 to do both formats, it's hardly worth the effort. I charged them $500 more for HD. Tape alone in 06 was $10 each. I usually shoot three camera weddings and I would say $100 of that was just tape. Once I was done with the SD Delivery. I printed the wedding to tape for transfer to bluray later. The encode time for me was about 3.5 hours for every hour when going to SD DVD. Now I am using Adobe CS3 and Premiere and it's taking a very long time to delivery HD on Bluray. It takes an hour per disc to burn a bluray dvd and that doesn't include the time to create the dvd. I would say I have about an hour in creating a dvd menu and chapters and the rest of the time would be eaten up with encoding. I imported my tapes into Premiere and exported them to encore. It takes my 3.2 Dual Core with Raid 0 raptors about 1.25 hours to encode one hour of the time line exported to Encore. I will keep notes on my next project and post how long it takes for all the encode times and burn. This weekend I built 4 Bluray DVDs filled with about 23gb on each disc, two seperate weddings. I charged the client $30 per bluray dvd plus the orginal upcharge for HD. My HD packages now are $1000 higher than SD. I have the new sony EX1 so my hd will now be 1920x1080 vs 1440x1080. On a side note, Encores ability to make a flash site out of the dvd/bluray project is pretty sweet!