Hey all -

Wanted to get other viewpoints on this question, especially information from the folks who set rate policy for their facility/shop.  This has been an ongoing discussion amongst a bunch of editors here in my market, espeically the freelance folks who "four-wall" suites for clients from facilities in the market.

I certainly realize that shops set up different rates for SD work and HD work.  There is a cost and value to setting up a proper HD shop and that cost must be recognized with offsetting income.  No argument there.

Question 1: do you charge by the hour for the time the editor/suite is using the HD ingest VTR (seeing an SR deck goes for $85k plus and other expensive gear) or do you add an additional rate hike to the entire session?  If so, what is reasonable for each?  Some shops increase their hourly by over $100/hour if you are doing HD work....even after you are done with the ingest machine.  So, using the same Avid, drives, monitors, etc., the rate increases by nearly 50% for the larger file sizes.  Seems a bit excessive to me.

Question 2: Should HDV be included in the above formula?  I have a client who brings in his $7,000 HDV camera to use that as a VTR via FW, we cut in HDV 1080, usually export a file for DVD or web distribution, and we are still being charged that "HD" rate in the Avid (I should also say the rates are exactly the same for HD and SD in FCP).  This seems really wrong to me, and I am still in discussions over this policy.

Question 3: What are some examples of hourly rates for SD editorial (with editor) and HD editorial (with editor)?  What about "four-wall" rates?

Thanks all.

The way i see it

Proper HD with a HDCAM or HDCAM SR does need an overall increase in rate not just the transfer time of the deck. However 'editorial' HD editing ie weeks rather than hours/days would switch to a traditional offline workflow at standard rates after the enhanced transfer fee.

So then it is HD high end Online that needs enhanced rates for the full online finish session.

Anyone doing HDCAM SR jobs should have a decent production budgets anyway

HDV should be the same rate as DV

Rates should be set by the finance guy/management otherwise your business will fail regardless of how good the editing is.

 

At the end of the day - if you are willing to pay the price they charge, they can keep on charging it. You can always shop around, although if they are the only game in town, then you are S.O.L.

They charge it - you pay for it. They charge it - people refuse to pay for it - they rethink their pricing. They charge it (and are the only game in town) - then maybe it's time for you to join the game, seeing if you can do a better price - that does not negatively effect the market like the influx of 'new' editors who do a horrible job for next to nothing, negating the actual market they wish to get into to make actual real money.

Scott, Don't forget that you still have to purchase HD monitors, HD scopes, Tri-Level sync, better quality wiring and patch bays, etc. Also, the drives have to handle HD bandwidths, this costs a lot more than playing down firewire. So the whole bay costs more. And the HD deck, maybe you only use it an hour a day, but the shop has to pay for the entire cost of the deck anyway. Unless they have HD work that is using it 24 hours a day, they need to recoup that cost from your session. As was mentioned above, if it's cheap to do, then you should be able to easily find lower rates at another shop.

hey Terry -

thanks for the info.  I certainly agree, as mentioned, that there is a value to setting up a shop that can properly handle, monitor, and deliver HD material.  I failed to mention that when I am ingesting HDCam location footage into the system via the SR deck, it is at a compressed resolution for offline only, then to online from the HDCam field tapes....a DS finish of course!  I do not finish on a MC for the HDCam gigs but almost always go to an online scenario.

But, when I am doing a film gig, and digitizing from Dbeta dailies, my rate is over $100/hour cheaper for this particular offline.  The shop(s) have still purchased all the above gear you mention, I am still using the same system and monitors, etc. but since I am bringing in compressed SD material, that seems to be the thing that kicks the rate lower.  Why the difference here?

On the HDV topic, I guess the base question is that should HDV be an equivalent rate to HDCam SR when Dbeta is so much more inexpensive.  Especially when my client provides the "vtr"?  For this type of client (web based or straight to DVD) it would be more efficient for me to "down convert" from HDV to Dbeta and then cut in the SD world.

Sure, I can shop around, and yes I am having these rate discussions with facilities.   I just want to see other viewpoints.  It just seems that a smaller, overall rate increase for all services at a particular facility might be a better way than "spiking" a couple of rates (when I was GM of a shop many moons ago and we brought in the first Dbetas into the market, we did not charge per deck useage, but added a small increase across the board to cover the costs....seemed to be easier for clients to digest.)

Thanks all.

 FWIW I debated about a different rate structure for HD over SD, but in the end decided to nominally raise dayrates across the board, then to recoup some of the extra capital expense and more time-consuming workflow changed how I handle the type of billable hours tied to a project. Ingest/render/transcoding/grfx prep&import...etc...all part of the same billable edit day rate (instead of breaking them out at a lower rate-or worse yet letting that time fall out of the budget as non-billed) Clients seemed genuinely pleased that there was no rate increase to jump to HD, and accepted the explanation that HD projects would still end up costing more because of the extra time necessary, and the few extra steps needed in the workflow. Also made my billing a whole lot simpler.

Do you guys not find it takes longer (in hours) to online a HD job compared with an SD job?

prepared correctly, is should not....not being render itensive, that is.  I am talking about offline rates.

switthaus:

I am talking about offline rates.

 

Ahhh, that's different. You don't need any higher end gear after capture. In that instance, our rates are the same except for the deck. If you want to have the deck at your disposal, then you would be paying for the deck at all times.

 

Or you could use digitalservicestation.com and edit at home on your own system. :-)

NICKB:

HDV should be the same rate as DV

Being that HDV is such a PITA to work with (I convert all HDV footage to DNx to lessen the pain) I can see why HDV would be a bit more than DV. 

For example, if I'm asked about a rate on a job and I can do it on Avid I can be more flexible with my rate, but if the job requires FCP, then my rate is very firm (and high for most "weekend warriors" that want editing).  This helps weed out a lot of the low-end work and pays me a premium for having to deal with FCP.  I can apply the same logic to HDV vs. DV. 

HD should cost more because of the increased storage and render time alone.  If you're going into another facility and using their system, then they have overhead that must be accounted for, the overhead to maintain an HDCam deck is much higher than overhead on an BetaSP.

 

 

Hey Kenton -

what about HDCam material into the system at offline resolutions?  Higher rates or no?

Should HDV rates be the very same as editing with HD?

 

switthaus:

what about HDCam material into the system at offline resolutions?  Higher rates or no?

Should HDV rates be the very same as editing with HD?

Generally speaking, every situation I deal with warrants case-by-case analysis.  For example, just a few days ago a client who throws a lot of work my way had 5 DVCProHD tapes that needed to be ingested in FCP.  He set up the deck rental (I had to pick up) and I captured at DVCPro100, for that I only billed a half day at my normal rate. 

But, if it was going to be a long time sitting on my drives waiting for review etc (all the typical long form headaches), then I'd have to factor in some kind of cost for storage overhead or something. 

When dealing with HDV, I don't specifically say that there is an extra fee for dealing with HDV, but I'm very up front with them and say that I will have to Transcode the footage into another HD codec and it usually works out covering most of the fees that would be considered extra by most SD vs. HD charges.  So basically, the client pays for me to deal with the footage to get it into a format that is the most efficient and future-proof. 

In my situation, the difference is not an overt amount so the client doesn't look at the bill and say "hey, wait a minute... what's all this?"  And that is the most important thing....

The other thing worth noting here is that I'm an independent freelance/consultant, so I don't have a facility nor employees to pay.  I also rent most of the equipment per situation (ie Decks, BoBs etc) to keep my overhead down.

 

 

 

hey Kenton -

for me, loading and logging is part of the process, so I don't adjust my fee at all.  Since I almost always have to submit an estimate/quote ahead of time, the client is well aware that if they shoot 2 hours of footage, that 2 hours/plus is included in the estimate they see, at rate.  The transcode to DnxHD is something that I will try next time around.  Sounds like it can help ease the pain.

Since I am a one man shop (in a way) as well, the original intention of this post was more aimed at what facilities charge me for different services.  It just struck me as very odd when a post house would charge a lower rate for SD, everything from Dbeta on down, and a second, much higher rate for HD, all for offline resolutions.  And what really got me was that HD charge included HDV material coming from my clients own camera as 'vtr'.  As Terry said, I can accept the fact that when I am using the SR deck to bring material in at 10:1 for offline, I should pay a fee for use and then back to lower rates.  Or, as mentioned above, an small but overall rate increase to offset the investment in HD gear.  But, what I am seeing was a 75% increase for rates that cover the entire session.  A little crazy (yes, I am in discussions and shopping around).  Thanks.

switthaus 

Another way of looking at it is the facility could have had another high paying client in doing HDCAM editing if you were not so busy tying up the edit kit doing hdv.

Is it not possible for you to rent the deck and transfer at your place, that is what we do.

Or be tough with them, tell them the deal you want, tell them that the economic climate is tough and budgets have been cut then if you win tell your client you saved them money they will like that!

NICKB:

Another way of looking at it is the facility could have had another high paying client in doing HDCAM editing if you were not so busy tying up the edit kit doing hdv.

I

Nick -

This would be a dangerous policy for any facility.  Yes, you may block out higher rate editorial, but that would send me to another facility to do that particular HDV gig, and more than likely any other gigs in the future.  So, short term, the facility would make a few more bucks, but long term, they would lose all of my SD, HD and HDV business.  As a former VP of Operations for a $24million dollar media company, I would be dead set against a policy like this.  There is a value to having that bird in the hand and keeping good client relations.  Clients tend to talk about 'bad news' alot more than good, so a policy like you mention above would be very short sighted.  Just my humble opine...

 

sw