What do you charge for video transfer? at DVinfo.net

Lalo Alvidrez · March 4th, 2008, 06:10 AM

I will be meeting a client that wants a video put together of her graduating twins. She will have various pictures and video clips that need to be transfered then uploaded to my pc for editing. How much would you charge for the video transferring? I did one for her son last year and charged her $50 for the video transfer but she didn't have but maybe 5 clips that all together were about 1 min. in length. Now with this new project she wants to use quite a bit more video clips. Do you charge by the minute? or by the job?

Matt Trubac · March 4th, 2008, 12:02 PM

My rate is based on the quantity of footage digitized (broken down to the minute, with a minimum charge of 20 minutes per tape). I have additional hourly rates for editing.

Samuel Hinterlang · March 4th, 2008, 03:50 PM

I charge 50% of my hourly rate for digitizing footage from tapes, since it's a basically automated process.

As for pre-digitized material, I honestly tend to guess-timate a price by how much there is and how long I'm going to need to spend organizing it all.

When a client dumps 50 images onto me, I'm generally going to bill for 2-3 hours to deal with resizing, and getting different types of images into their own folders so I can find them later.

Generally I'm just charging based on how much time I think I'm going to be dealing with it.

Lalo Alvidrez · March 5th, 2008, 09:09 PM

There is about 6 different vhs tapes with timecodes for each and I would say a total of about 5 minutes of footage from different parts of the tapes. If you don't want to put how much you actually charge then you can send me a pm. Just want to make sure I'm charging enough.

March 4th, 2008, 06:10 AM	#1
Lalo Alvidrez Major Player Join Date: May 2006 Location: Longview, Tx. Posts: 227	What do you charge for video transfer? I will be meeting a client that wants a video put together of her graduating twins. She will have various pictures and video clips that need to be transfered then uploaded to my pc for editing. How much would you charge for the video transferring? I did one for her son last year and charged her $50 for the video transfer but she didn't have but maybe 5 clips that all together were about 1 min. in length. Now with this new project she wants to use quite a bit more video clips. Do you charge by the minute? or by the job?

March 4th, 2008, 12:02 PM	#2
Matt Trubac Major Player Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Grand Rapids, MI Posts: 286	My rate is based on the quantity of footage digitized (broken down to the minute, with a minimum charge of 20 minutes per tape). I have additional hourly rates for editing. __________________ Matt Trubac

March 4th, 2008, 03:50 PM	#3
Samuel Hinterlang Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA Posts: 79	I charge 50% of my hourly rate for digitizing footage from tapes, since it's a basically automated process. As for pre-digitized material, I honestly tend to guess-timate a price by how much there is and how long I'm going to need to spend organizing it all. When a client dumps 50 images onto me, I'm generally going to bill for 2-3 hours to deal with resizing, and getting different types of images into their own folders so I can find them later. Generally I'm just charging based on how much time I think I'm going to be dealing with it.

March 5th, 2008, 09:09 PM	#4
Lalo Alvidrez Major Player Join Date: May 2006 Location: Longview, Tx. Posts: 227	There is about 6 different vhs tapes with timecodes for each and I would say a total of about 5 minutes of footage from different parts of the tapes. If you don't want to put how much you actually charge then you can send me a pm. Just want to make sure I'm charging enough.