DVD pricing

JJack wrote on 1/12/2003, 12:06 PM
I'm gearing up to offer DVDs to my retail customers. They want conversion to DVD of their VHS and other format videos, home movies, slides and pix, etc. I'm in Colorado. What are some of you charging for a DVD? Help me out. I see a flat charge for a one-menu DVD in a jewel box and extra charges for case cover, additional menus, etc.

Comments

pb wrote on 1/12/2003, 12:21 PM
I hope your market is not saturated like ours is. Here are some US links:

http://www.upstartfilmcollective.com/rates.html

http://www.alexanderfilm.com/dvd.htm

http://www.nofrillsdvd.com/rates/rate-sheet.php

Here in sunny northern Alberta, Canada the rates are:

Straight anaolog -> DVD HARDWARE encode minimum charge $56.00

add: 60 - 74 minutes add 56$ (112$ total so far)

75 - 89 minutes add 68$ (56 + 68 = 124$ total)

90 - 110 minues add 75$ (56 + 75 = 131$ total)

111 - 120 minutes add 90$ for maximum 146$ for encode.

copies (at time of encode) 1 44.50$; 2-4 39.50$; 5-8 37.50$; 9-49 33.00$

price includes full colour label (custom made for DVD use!!!!!!) and colour insert.

Chapter points 10$ each. Custom menu design depends upon whatever the market will bear.

I realize western Canadian rates are very low compared to nofrillsdvd et al but the way I look at it is I spend a maximum of an hour (cumulative, few minutes here and there add up)making a two hour DVD and maybe 5:00 per copy for disc changes, printing and assembly so the return on my time is acceptable. Because I am doing hardware encode I just guess how long the clip is and then extract the pieces I want to burn to DVD from the master MPEG2 file. Very little actual hands on.

Hope this helps,

Peter

riredale wrote on 1/12/2003, 5:22 PM
Last March here in Oregon I took in a 60-minute miniDV tape to a drug store called Rite-Aid. They offered a service (through Kodak, I recall) that put it on a DVD-R for about $40. The result was pretty good, and they put in chapter points every 3 minutes or so.
pb wrote on 1/12/2003, 6:16 PM
My prices are in Canadian dollars so divide by 2 to get USD equivalent.
johnmeyer wrote on 1/12/2003, 9:39 PM
The service affiliated with Kodak is YesVideo. Here's the link:

YesVideo
pb wrote on 1/13/2003, 12:55 AM
they don't post their rates. Bet they went up a bit. Guy from nofrillsdvd.com says his rates are rising.
riredale wrote on 1/13/2003, 12:08 PM
Went to the YesVideo web site, drilled down eventually to the Radio Shack link, and read that "FotoShack" service (as it's called) will do up to 2 hours for $39.99. They will automatically put in up to 54 chapter points.

As I recall, the chapter points are simply chosen by time interval. Perhaps a competing service could offer to create chapter points that actually point to interesting user-selected points in the video. It means someone would have to manually control the process, however...