Business investment advice

[Steve Holmes]

Hopefully you guys can give me some real worl advice.

Background
I am a video maker/editor/VJ who works on a varriety of small projects normally shot on DV but I am moving to HDV with a HV20 35mm lens adapter combination. I could proably get some extra work editing on the move (music tour podcasts etc) if I had a new laptop I could edit on.

I have an old if well upgrade Dual 2Ghz G5 that I use as my main edit station it has 4.5 gb ram an overclocked X800 (256mb) and a kona LH. This is flightcased and I use as playback on the live VJ (concert visuals) work I do. I use FCP studio 2 a lot including motion and dvd studio. I also have an old 1GHZ G4 powerbook which goes most places with me but I can't really use for editing or VJing.

At present I have some extra cash coming in around £1000 ($2000) and I am not so sure which spending path I should take. I want to work more effiently and raise my production values, so here are the options I see.

1 - Get a New 15.4 MBP and use this to edit on the road and VJ with (leaving my G5 in my office)
2- Get a firestore for my 35mm lens adapter rig and carry on editing on the G5.
3- Sell the G5 & kona and get a MacPro.
4- Get a pair of cool light kino's and raise the standard of my corporate shot film work.

5- Wait!

Hope you get the general idea just wondering how much of a possible replacement the MBP could be for my old G5 setup

Anyway cheers for reading all this and lokk forward to the advice.
Steve

 

[milksac]

How you spend your money depends on a many factors. The most important being what's the main focus of your business now - your current clients. The second most import is the direction of the company - what do you want to be doing 5 years from now?

If you do a lot of VJ work now and want to continue in that direction then a MBP would be a good choice. Buying a Firestore or new lighting gear would be dependant on how much production work you're doing now or plan on doing in the future. Buying a MacPro would be a good investment for the post needs of your company.

You might get a lot of opinions about what gear you should purchase, but there's only one opinion that matters - your opinion You're the only one that knows the direction of your company. All that matters is the gear that fits with your vision. If your not sure about the direction of your business then option #5 is probably the best choice.