How many of you HVX user's charge clients for disk space?

M

mrbrycel

Well-known member
I had never really given it any though until I started doing gigs, but video files do take large amounts of disk space. Is it unreasonable to charge a client for disk space? For instance, you buy a 500GB hard drive for $100, a certain project takes up a total of 50GB, so you charge the client $10. I know $10 seems measly, but after all your projects build up, you've got to either buy another hard drive, or trash your work.
 
I think it depends on what your agreement with your client is. In traditional work-for-hire gigs, they client owns all the media when all is said and done. In the case of solid state acquisition where the raw files are on hard drive and it takes more drive space to archive, then I'll work a drive into the bid which I will do in many cases when I'm having to repurpose older projects for clients. That becomes a digital archival fee. In some cases, all they want is a master on tape and they're happy with that and don't need / want all the original assets.

Point is, there can be a few different cases when it comes to storage / archival. All depends on your agreement with the client in the long run. I've got a handful of 250 - 500 gig firewire drives dedicated to clients that I consistantly work with. They each have their own drive and $150 - $200 for a drive isn't a real kick in the pants when it comes to archiving for them.

cheno
 
I have some "coverall" charges in my quotes that I could say cover the cost of archiving footage and projects. It is not defined as such and if ever asked ... I would tell the client thats what it covers. It also covers the random requests for a wmv or a QT or a screen grab etc..... Saves me billing every little request.

BTW- I could easily cover (bury) the cost of a new HD for every production that I do. Its so insignificant compared to the production cost.
 
$10 client charges? come on, were making videos here not selling pizza...

my practice is to buy each new client their own 500 gig drive (or drive modules) at the start of each new engagement. this is generally a $200-$500 charge depending on type of drive.

if a new client or project cant justify that cost - it probably isnt worth getting involved with in the first place ; )
 
My situation is a little different than most folks who've responded, as I'm generally a full-production shop, handling all production and post for a typical project.

Many of my projects involve editing decisions that come from the client; and often these take a long time.

In general, I don't explicitly charge a fee for storage; but I do charge an "archiving fee" which covers final products (usually DVD materials and a high-quality SD or HD H.264, all on optical media.

When editing decisions are concerned, I charge for storage if the editing decisions take a long time. That is, if the client gives me enough information to move the project along to archivable format in a reasonable time, I don't charge... but if it takes a long time so that i have to buy drives to store the materials rather than finish and the project and re-use drive space, I charge. I have a number of drives paid for by clients who want me to archive projects for future editing; or who have large projects at regular intervals or that that I have to store for large amounts of time.

All clients have the option of paying for full archiving or delivery of original materials, etc... but they tend not to be interested.
 
If shooting to P2/doign an edit job, I factor in a hard drive which will become client property. I offer a local copy on my hard drive for an extra fee, otherwise I write into my contract i will keep local copies for 30 days only.
 
I build a fee into the price of the project that goes to cover hard drive space. Just find a good hard drive you like, and determine how much per gig it costs to buy it, and then charge a flat rate. I.E. $20 a project unless you need a large amount of space. I have purchased about 5 500GB Lacie HD and I love them. I catalog and store the drives on a bookshelf just in case I need copies of the files or the client needs copies.
 
If my laptop is being rented on the job as well as myself I give a free 30 day back up storage on my raid. It's just a back up just in case something happens to the original footage. If they have to come to me for lost footage, that's where I charge, and that is different depending on the client and/or the amount of footage that needs to be recovered. And trust me they are glad to pay.
 
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