Renting a full blown HD editing system?

T

Toaster

Well-known member
Does anyone know of a company / service provider that rents / leases HD (FCP-based) editing systems? We're looking to see what our options are: buying or building a 40K system versus renting one. Would like to rent one (only need it for about a year) in California.

Thanks in advance for any leads...

K
 
In L.A. you have Abel, Promax, Moviola Digital, etc. Renting for more than a few weeks is likely to be more expensive than just buying though. Resale value after a year will be pretty decent, depending on what you get.

Noah
 
Hey man...

Yeah, I rent from Abel when I'm in LA - they have pretty decent gear and great staff.

What I'm thinking (possibly a pipe dream) is that sinking 40K into a system that will loose value over the year (especially when it comes time to deal with selling) - that a rental / lease option (like a car) would be a great way to go.

I just don't know whether there is anyone out there that does anything like that ... a turnkey badass HD editing system for like $500 per month or something...
 
Well what are you cutting and what do you need? And where do you get $40K?

Because honestly $40K is a lot more than most people ever even come close to spending on their FCP HD editing systems. That's kinda the entire reason why FCP is so different from Avid's original paradigm- rent vs. own.

A Mac Pro costs $4k or less, FCS costs $1,200, drives cost another few K, HD monitors are under $5K and a monitoring card from Blackmagic or Kona costs another 1-2K. I put together a really nice HD cut suite for a documentary that went on the Discovery Channel for about $11,000 everything included(even my consulting fee). And that's a system they could easily sell now almost a year later for $7,500 or more.

So again I fail to see where renting for a year makes any sense if we're talking an FCP system. You can rent decks but you'll only need them for ingest and playout. Rent the whole thing and you're really throwing away a lot of dough with no way to ever recoup anything.

Noah
 
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Very well explained Noah. I agree that is kinda the point of FCP to begin with, being it's cheaper than others. That would be a pretty kick-ass system with everything he mentioned. That is close to what I run, along with probly a bunch of others on here, and it works like a million bucks.
 
Just to echo Noah here:

Buy it, use it, sell it. Or - just keep it.

If there's indeed a place that rents out FCP boxes for $500 / month, please let me know where they exist.
 
Just to clairify ...

Right now we're crankin out 2 editing stations using FCP as our foundation (with Konas, RAIDs, HD monitors, etc. etc.).

The obvious problem that we (and, I'm sure, many of you/us) run into is that technology moves so quickly that it would make sense to "lease" a system rather than buying it - only if the break-even point were in our favor. In other words - if we could justify renting/leasing as a less expensive route compared to buying and then taking a hit selling in the open & used market.

$500 would be sweet - but obviously not a real number. SD systems go for around 600-900 per week. So I would expect to see a super pimped out HD system run something like 1500 per week.

But again - not sure where / with whom to talk re: renting a full blown HD station.
 
1,500 a week is 6,000/month x 12 months = 72,000/year- zoiks! Why would you want to burn that kind of dough?

Anyways- in answer to your question- Moviola Digital, Abel Cine, Dr. Rawstock(now Dr Group). There's a La411 link up a few threads back that can help you.

But to your last concern- these things really don't change a whole lot year to year. An Intel Mac from last year would be good to go, but for the $499 upgrade to FCS2 to keep completely current. Everything else- Raids, BlackMagic Card- etc remains pretty constant. An HD system of 2 or 3 years ago would be just about as capable as one today with a few minor upgrades.

Noah
 
Hell, Toaster, if you are really that averse to buying I'll hire Noahk to put together a FCP HD rig for me and I'll rent it to you for a year @ $1000/wk!:thumbsup:

-A
 
heh heh ... cool - sign me up dude!

just to re-clarify: I'm not offering - nor could I justify - $1500 per week. i'm only guessing what the market price is. i *don't know* what a sick system would cost to rent. I would love to hear actual quotes.

I'll check out the comps and report back.

Would be great to lease state of the art / newest tech (although you'd loose your depreciation write off ;))
 
I edited a feature shot on super 16 and finished HD. We rented a system from Abel Cine for $1,000 a week for 12 weeks.

The Mac and FCP don't cost that much, its the 36TB of fiber channel storage along with all of the ancillary audio, switches and I/O equipment that you need that really adds up.

If your post producing a project in uncompressed HD then be prepared to spend quite a bit. If your doing it compressed then what Noah described is the way to go. Of coarse it also depends what it is. I was amazed at how much of that 36TB's we consumed with one feature film.
 
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