Competition using HD, is it worth it?

[x-angel]

Hey all,

I just thought I would throw this out there, and I am sure this has been discussed before.

There is a videographer here in town that claims he is the first one to use HD for his wedding videography.

Now from what I understand, there are no real HD DVD players that don't cost an arm and a leg. This guy goes even as far as to state that he could "give" you the player to watch this video on. And even further, about how his wedding clips on his website are changed to SD.

This sounds like a really scamish way to run things:

1. Use of HD. Okay no problem.
2. Customer cant watch the HD Version on their current DVD system
3. So videographer sells HD system, therefore getting even more money out of the customer.

Now I understand that the HD video can be back converted to SD. And I think the "HD Standard" won't be required by players and TV until what.... 2009?

So my personal feeling is that I don't want to "rope-a-dope" my customers. "Yeah we can shoot and edited it in HD! But....you will have to buy a completely new system in order to watch it!"

Also, I always find that whenever a new technology comes out, there are inherent flaws with it. I don't get back into the states until 2007, and I plan to have two 100B's at that time, which cannot shoot HD.

But my overall question is, are these competitors of mine (2 here in the area shoot exclusively in HD) visionaries? Or jumping the gun to get more money?

With the HVX200 slated to be $5500 dollars, and the Sony FX1 being around that price range, and the lack of standardization when it comes to players as of yet... I just don't see the need to invest in two HDV cameras.


Questions? Comments? Suggestions?

[Luis Caffesse]

I don't know if there is anything really "scammish" about it. It doesn't sound like they're lying to customers about it.


But my overall question is, are these competitors of mine (2 here in the area shoot exclusively in HD) visionaries? Or jumping the gun to get more money?

I think only time will show the answer to that one.
Personally I think they're jumping the gun. At least here in Austin there hasn't been much demand for HD work (for weddings I mean).

Given that you've got some time before you come back and get rolling I wouldn't worry about it too much.

[x-angel]

I am just curious about this, since there is such a "buzz" about it, but I just really don't find it to be a good investment until all the "kinks" are worked out of it.

I'll probably eventually go HD, but right now, or even in 2007, I don't see the need for it. It seems to just add a lot of overhead with very little benefits coming back.

[galt]

I was at a film festival last week. One of the programs was a film shot by a local college class. They were all there for Q&A. When I asked the PROFESSOR what they shot it on, he told me they shot it on an XL2 in High Def. No wonder kids coming out of school are so stupid. And it looked like crap too.

You should find out what cam your competitor is using.

[Luis Caffesse]

he told me they shot it on an XL2 in High Def.


Hahahah.
Maybe I should be happy I never went to film school.

[x-angel]

From their website:

Our Sony HD cameras use 3-1/3" 16:9 Advanced HAD™ CCD Imagers which provides excellent detail and clarity with exceptional digital video performance, color information,colors are extremely accurate, and color “bleeding” and “smearing” are greatly reduced.

Advanced HAD™ CCD Technology Enhanced CCD design allows more light to reach the imager which reduces video noise to improve signal-to-noise ratio by up to 6db (2x better than a standard CCD). Particularly effective when shooting in dark situations.
Now you all your memories are in true high-definition video.

Equipped with a new Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* high definition lens with a 12x zoom function. Its fully coated glass is the same as used on Carl Zeiss prime lenses,producing sharp, high-contrast images, with virtually no chromatic aberration. This lens is designed with a wide viewing angle, thanks to a large filter diameter of 72 mm.

XL2 in high def? Hell...I don't know as much as you guys but I know that is BS

[thisiswells]

Hey, Eric! It's me again :)

I can't imagine this is anything besides marketing, proving once again, event videographers rarely market the skills they should but don't have and instead rely on impressive cutting edge technology to deliver the results, thus technology is their primary selling point.

What I'm trying to say is, I'd really like to be impressed with event videography and I think you can do it well. People should hire you based on what you can do with a camera, not the kind of camera you have. Actually, that IS what people are looking for in a videographer. It's just that, well, they rarely find it, at least in my observation.

This is slowly changing, I think.

[x-angel]

In their defense...their sample footage does look good. They have won two awards for one of their videos, and the owner was invited to speak at the WEVA convention about the oncoming revolution in HD.

I have seen stuff done with the DVX that has blown me away. I really think HD is overatted and looks to "home video"-ish unless it's treated right.

It doesn't seem like any of these guys know what a 35mm adapter is, or anything like that.

My skill with a camera will be directed by my clients. They are going to want a certain look and feel to their video. I want to be able to provide that. My focus is the clients, their story. After I shoot this, we will probably never meet or talk again, but they will have to live with my product for a long time.

My raising of the bar is not telling my clients what they should want, it's allowing them to tell me what they want...thats why the pre-wedding day interviews are so important.

Also...as I said MAP wont just be doing weddings...there are several other things I want to do.

[Barry_Green]

And I think the "HD Standard" won't be required by players and TV until what.... 2009?
There is no requirement to ever change to HD. The changeover is to Digital Television, of which high-def is only a subset. There is no government mandate to go to HDTV.


So my personal feeling is that I don't want to "rope-a-dope" my customers. "Yeah we can shoot and edited it in HD! But....you will have to buy a completely new system in order to watch it!"
Well... the first key to success in business is to offer a product that the customer wants to buy. If customers start clamoring for HD in your area, you'd better have HD (whether it makes sense or not) or you'll be fighting the tide every sales pitch you make. With that said, I talked to a few videographers at the WEVA show in August to get a feel for HD demand, and every single one of them said "no customer has yet asked for HD."

If you have a customer who really wants their wedding shot in HD, you could make a DVD that would play in their computer, via authoring it to WMV9-HD. It wouldn't play in their TV/DVD player, but on their computer it would.


Also, I always find that whenever a new technology comes out, there are inherent flaws with it. I don't get back into the states until 2007, and I plan to have two 100B's at that time, which cannot shoot HD.
By 2007 all four manufacturers will have had HD solutions on the market for at least a year, Sony for two, JVC for four. You should make the decision at that time.


But my overall question is, are these competitors of mine (2 here in the area shoot exclusively in HD) visionaries? Or jumping the gun to get more money?
Or are they *thinking* they'll get more money? Don't know, you'd have to see how effective their sales pitch is. If they're able to get the average customer to pay $500 more for the privilege of having it shot in HD, well, then they'd seem downright visionary! But if the customers don't care, then... "jumping the gun" would seem the more accurate explanation. It all depends on how it's being received by the customer.


With the HVX200 slated to be $5500 dollars, and the Sony FX1 being around that price range,
The FX1 is almost half that. Last I checked it was around $3200.


and the lack of standardization when it comes to players as of yet... I just don't see the need to invest in two HDV cameras.
If you're not going to be setting up shop until 2007, I don't see the need to invest in any cameras of any type yet -- until you can do some viable market research as to what the customers actually need and actually want, why commit this early out?

[x-angel]

Barry,

Just a few questions on your comments.



There is no requirement to ever change to HD. The changeover is to Digital Television, of which high-def is only a subset. There is no government mandate to go to HDTV.
I stand corrected on that.


Well... the first key to success in business is to offer a product that the customer wants to buy. If customers start clamoring for HD in your area....
If there are only 2....then the demand cannot be that great.


I talked to a few videographers at the WEVA show in August to get a feel for HD demand, and every single one of them said "no customer has yet asked for HD."

Hence my point. I don't see why these guys are basing their entire business on this.

Their footage looks good, but I can only see it in SD on the web, since thats the way the converted it.


The FX1 is almost half that. Last I checked it was around $3200.

Again... I stand corrected on that.


If you're not going to be setting up shop until 2007, I don't see the need to invest in any cameras of any type yet -- until you can do some viable market research as to what the customers actually need and actually want, why commit this early out?

I am doing my biz plan, and I need a high end camera to practice with. I just find this whole thing about HD at wedding interesting.

I just dont think that the HD thing will take off for a while, especially with the lack of HD players and things like that. Yeah there are HD TV's. but very few HD DVD players. (correct me if I am wrong). Blu-Ray and HD haven't gotten standardized yet, and I dont see that for a few more years.

I say that because look at DVD burners...people jumped on them, and what happened...a lot of burned DVD's (at first) couldn't play in all DVD players...so there is going to be some lee-way with this technology.

As far as my clients wanting HD..they are going to have to define it first. Some people think that "not looking like a home movie" is HD.

Thanks again Barry

[Barry_Green]

There's no doubt that HD is better than SD -- better resolution, much better color fidelity (no bleeding, no blooming, etc). The question is whether that'll translate into people actually buying it.

How many of us have DVD-Audio players? Or Super Audio CD players? How many of us bought S-VHS decks? Or LaserDisc players?

"Better" comes around all the time, but it doesn't necessarily achieve market acceptance.

For content creators, it's hard to argue against high-def (unless you're arguing 2/3" top-quality SD against 1/3" bottom-of-the-rung HD, so let's not take the discussion in a silly direction!) But that's content creators. Will the public at large adopt HD? Do they even care?

There are a lot of HDTVs being sold, but I firmly believe it's more to do with the fact that you cannot buy a non-HD bigscreen than it is to do with people setting out to buy specifically HDTV.


This guy goes even as far as to state that he could "give" you the player to watch this video on.
Last I heard, about 7% of the households in America had an HDTV. So while he's "giving" you the player, is he also going to give the 93% of his customers an HDTV set to watch it on too? ;)

I think a good way to validate market acceptance for HDTV would be to get some cable TV providers to divulge what % of their subscribers are opting for the optional HD service. Voom was a satellite HD-only service that went out of business due to a lack of subscribers. Cable company HDTV service, or DirecTV HDTV service, is about the only way we could verify what % of customers are actually wanting HDTV and are willing to pay to get it.

Again, that said, it's not up to us to determine what the customer wants. It's up to us to give the customer what they want (and, sometimes, to help the customer determine what they want). If someone wants something in HD, by gum I'll give it to them in HD.

[Barry_Green]

Did a little digging, and found this:

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=nocclamp&doc_id=1340006127&cache=FALSE&preview=TRUE#NEWS2a

Says that at the current level of adoption, only 10% of those who subscribe to digital cable are paying for HDTV service. So how many are subscribing to digital cable, vs. regular (analog) cable? According to The Yankee Group, Digital Cable adoption should hit 39 million homes two years from now... so does that put us at 30 million homes now? And if 10% of them are paying for HDTV, that makes a total of 3%.

They also say that only 44% of households that have HDTVs are subscribing to some sort of HD video service (which would presumably include Dish, DirecTV, etc). With HDTVs in 7% of American households, that means that 3% of the households out there are finding it worth the money to pay for HD.

So -- yeah, looks like 3% of the households in America are paying for HDTV programming.

Not exactly a compelling argument to jump in and upgrade to HD to keep up with the competition! But, again -- all that matters is what your local market is demanding. If they demand HD weddings, give 'em HD weddings -- the equipment is cheap enough that there's not really a reason not to.

[x-angel]

Cheap Enough? I would have to invest 10K to get HD with Panny. And thats not including all the licensing I need to get for software and other equipment. Could I spend 6k and get HD with an FX1? yeah, but I prefer Panny.

I personally think this is so overatted right now...not all the kinks have been worked out, and there is no standard. Sorry... I am in the miltary, and I like standards. Blu-Ray wont be standardize for a few years, and even at that, I dont see HD becoming standardize for a few years after that.

Thats why I get ticked when people think that a DVD is actual digital video with 9GB. It's not. (I am sure this is another firebomb I just threw out) DVD is a loseless VHS tape with great sound.

Actual digital video run 24 megabits per second (24 mb/s or 24000 bits/second, or 23.43 KB/s), whereas DVDs run 9.8.

Anyway...my viewpoint is that most of my customers, unless they are into video/film, will not know the difference. They just dont want it to look like a home movie...so they think they have to go HD. They think - as some poeple have said - HD is anything other than a kid showing with a consumer camcorder.
Thats my thoughts on it.

[Barry_Green]

Well, that's why I say -- if you've got great content, they won't care what it was shot on. If your content stinks, they won't care what it was shot on.

When I say "cheap enough", I recognize that for a lot of people (okay, all of us) $6,000 or $10,000 is not "cheap". But IN CONTEXT with the business, it's dirt cheap. If you're going to sell your services as a hired shooter for $800/day, it doesn't take long at all to pay that back -- and then you're your own boss for the rest of your life. Work "free" for 10 days to pay back the camera (meaning, you charge, but instead of you keeping the wages, you pay off your credit card or whatever) and then from then on out you're free and clear.

With weddings, it's even easier -- charge $2500 or $3500. Two or three jobs and you're in the clear. So yes, if you're using it as a business tool to make money, I repeat: it's cheap. Cheap cheap cheap. A VariCam package at $100,000 is not cheap, that takes some serious business skills to amortize and pay off. An FX1 package at $5,000 is cheap cheap cheap, if you're really good and a real hard worker you could pay that off in a week. How much cheaper does it need to get?

Now, this all presupposes that one knows what they're doing, and how to shoot, before spending that money to buy the hardware. If you're behind the 8-ball and scrimping along at a day job and buying $7,000 of stuff on a credit card and then you have to work two jobs because you now have to make a $500/mo credit card payment, so you never learn to shoot or go out and get jobs... well, yeah, in that situation it's "hello bankruptcy". But, instead, if you know what you're doing, you know how to get jobs, you're confident in your skills, and you can invest the time to do the work -- in that circumstance these cameras are dirt cheap.

[x-angel]

Yeah...I see your point on that..

I'll probably get the DVX100B's and get used to doing this type of work, and build up a good rep. Eventually I'll probably move to HD once it becomes a little more standardized (a little cheaper too)

We see the business end of it...but my "boss" (aka the Wife) wouldn't see it that way...she would see it as 10K spent on the mere hope we would be making money...

[Luis Caffesse]

X-angel...why not wait until you come back to buy the cameras?
Doesn't seem like the best business move to buy 2 cameras you don't plan on making money off of until 2007. For all you know you'll be getting the DVX100C by then, or the HVX200B...etc.

[sonisfear]

JVC High Def player MSRP $399
http://pro.jvc.com/prof/attributes/features.jsp?model_id=MDL101546

IOdata HD player Msrp $399.00
http://www.iodata.com/products/products.php?cat=HNP&sc=AVEL&pId=AVLP2%2FDVDLA&ts=2&tsc=15&glr=1&img=avlp2_dvdla-1_zoom.jpg

XBox 360 MSRP $399.00

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/ContentShowcase.aspx

I sell HD packages only. I explain to the customer that very soon affordable HD dvd players will be every and show them the above products that are under $399 MSRP. These devices use mostly regular DVD mechanics and media while utilizing free/cheap compression codecs from quicktime, DivX and WMV HD. you can fit 2 hours of HD video on one regular .25cents DVD (means that you don't hafto buy and special burner or media).

If you look at the sample on the microsoft link above WMV HD is an excellent HD compression codec reducing the file bandwidth to 6-8Mbps the same as a DVD. So although it isn't full HD like bluray of HD DVD it is really really good.

This WMV HD disk will play on a decent computer which almost everyone has for now and will provide great quality in the future. I perform my demo on from my computers currently and look forward to my purchase of my XBOX 360.

I provide 3 packages each with one WMVHD Disk and one down scaled DVD.
as well as provide a HD master which is the editing wedding printed to mini DV tape at 25 Mbps for future conversion to Bluray or HD dvd when it becomes cheaper. Cx simply bring these tapes back to me for conversion at a fair fee at the time.

Cx are blown away watching my weddings on a computer monitor right now in (wmvHD i show them in the format they will get it in) . Not one cx who has scene it has not sign yet. I can only imagine when my XBOX 360 comes in and I show it on my 43" HD TV.

There isn't any reason why you can't produce weddings in HD and your cx watch it in HD. No scams, HD is the program and it easy. In a refferal business the better my product the faster/more these brides
promote me.

[x-angel]

Well like I said, I just wait to have to invest in that.

Did you start in HD or move to it eventually?