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So Mitsubishi manufactured Verbatim DVD+R DLs are the way to go then?
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Yes, ESPECIALLY if this will be for customers. However, in all honesty, due to the rather poor compatibility % of DVD+R DL media in general (less than 75% on a good day), you'd be better off sticking to Verbatim DVD-R (about ~95% compatibility with existing DVD players/recorders). Even DVD+R should be off the table, unless you just want to risk the complaints of "My disc don't work!" and all the vulgarity and condescension that can come with a problem customer. We master to DVD+R, duplicate to DVD-R. All Verbatim. No crap/cheap blanks here! (Even Taiyo Yuden is a bit undeserving of it's reputation online, as the discs do exhibit playback problems more often that Verbatim. That's why
Verbatim ranks higher than Taiyo Yuden in our of media reviews.)
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Yeah...I cannot tell a lie
My ongoing project involves setting up a small 'local' business that can offer professional VHS + Betamax to digital conversion services.
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Well, I'm glad you didn't! (Lie, that is.) Some people think they need to hide the fact that they're a video business, video freelancer, studio employee, etc, when seeking our advice. That's simply not the case. If anything, we're for more transparency in the video world! We like our quality competitors, colleagues and peers. (
Our venom is saved for imposters.) Advice to a home users and a business user will not be the same.
For starters, consumers need to understand the difference between some random guy in his garage (using equipment bought from the local "big box" consumer store, with the asinine idea that he'll get rich quick converting), and somebody that has invested time and funds into professional gear, understanding what it takes to create a quality product/service worth buying. Same for those already in the field doing sloppy work, or those who may wish to enter the video profession in some capacity.
(Our own web host,
EuroVPS, is very much in line with this desire to be transparent, to show customers and competitors alike what it takes to be a worthy operation in the web hosting industry. It's one reason we've chosen
EuroVPS as our host for the past 5 years. Just wanted to mention that, as it was a topic we had discussed on-forum earlier this year.)
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- 1x Panasonic NV-FS200 (fully functional)
- 1x JVC HR-S9600 (untested)
- 1x Panasonic NV-HS1000 (untested)
- 1x Sony SL-HF950 (untested)
- 1x AVT-8710 TBC (brand new)
- An expensive power filter ($300-$400? Purchase it a while ago for unrelated reasons)
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This is all very nice. Good job.
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- 1x Canopus ADVC110 (brand new)
- Over $400 worth of monster cables
- A canon pixma mg6150 multifunction printer ('this' was going to look after the cd labels for me, prints directly to disc surface)
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Eh, it'll get the job done.
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- A Toshiba Qosmio X500 (the X makes it sound cool! )
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A computer is a computer, more or less. But good laptops come in handy, especially if you ever progress to doing on-location work. On a laptop, however, you can't do any major color correction work -- the monitors are awful. Beyond awful -- unusable, even. You'll want to always plugin into a external LCD or preview monitor of some kind, for corrective work.
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- A cheap secondary Benq LCD (19"?)
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Mistake. You really should get an IPS type monitor, not the cheap TN type monitors. Look at LG or ViewSonic. That's what is used here, currently. The LG probably looks a wee bit better, though costs a little more. Instead of $100-200/monitor, double up to about $300-400 for a good low-cost IPS display. You'll regret it later, if you don't do it now. TN monitors can really horribly distort gamma and midtones, even with attempts to calibrate.
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Hmm...I was actually contemplating a product that does not have a menu at all. Do you think this is a bad idea?
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No, in fact, it's perfect. Unless a customer submits chapters that mean something, it's rather stupid to just randomly assign labels, and create an arbitrary menu. The tape had no menu, so the DVD doesn't need one either. Put chapter marks at time intervals of 5 minutes, and that's good enough. If somebody wants fancy menus, precise chapter marks, etc, then they can plan for that in advance, submit time references and labels to you, and you can charge a nice fat editing fee for all the time that will take. And it DOES take a lot of time. Most people (the customers) will lose interest as soon as they're told they have to work to make it happen (create timecodes, etc). Liar competitors will describe how they create chapters, thumbnail menus, etc -- but it's just botched junk. I've seen a lot of work from a lot of places in the past decade, and service-created arbitrary menus tend to be worse than no menu at all. Since chapters are arbitrary, too, there's honestly no difference between manually selecting points and setting a time interval. It's not like many people jump around chapters anyway.
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cost of inkjet media, and ink supplies and printer, far exceeds the value of a few seconds typically given to disc art viewing.
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My favorite example of this is John Schneider (aka "Bo Duke" of Dukes of Hazzard, and "Pa Kent" of Smallville). His self-produced movie "Collier & Co: Hot Pursuit" had very nice disc art, run from what appears to be a good pressing company. The case artwork was pretty decent, but it's obvious more effort went into the disc art. The menu was sloppy but effective. The movie itself was rubbish; the video was jerky, poorly encoded, and I think that it was deinterlaced with some mucky method. I've never watched the movie because it gave me a headache after 5 minutes -- it's crap. I wrote to Schneider at his agent's address at the time, and never heard back, which somewhat pissed me off. (Well, that and the fact he basically killed Dukesfest, after taking it away from Nashville. Thanks, John.) The disc was, from what I can tell, created by Westlake Entertainment Group in California, who did a really horrible quality job on it. It's easily one of the 10 worst discs I've ever seen, in terms of the audio/video content, and that includes sloppy homemade work. And trust me, I've seen A LOT of bad work.
Just don't get your priorities mixed up:
Content, disc quality (good blanks, good presses), menu, case, disc art -- IN THAT ORDER!
We only do artwork for press submission. For one-off projects, home movie conversion, seriously, it's not worth it. The costs of ink and printer maintenance, if creating truly professional quality full-color image labels, will destroy profit margins significantly. Again, competitors will tout "labeled DVDs" but it's often using a really awful stretched font, black text on a white label; these people couldn't design a square box with a ruler. We'll give out all project masters on inkjet discs, and the client can print their own art, write on it with a Sharpie marker (OUR SUGGESTION!), write on it with one of those silly "DVD safe" markers (scam items, honestly), or even ruin the disc with sticky labels (which we suggest NOT doing). Tip: Learn calligraphy or comic-style handwriting, and just use that. It's as good as, or better than, most DVD transfer services that print their tacky text (and their logo and info, of course -- UGH!) on a client disc.
Note that we never blemish customer discs with our logos, contact info, etc. These are paid pieces, not our advertising materials. Few companies seem to have much respect for their customers, in this way. In addition to scarring up the disc/case artwork, some go as far as placing logos before/during/after the videos! How horrible, shameless, tacky and amateur. Don't be one of those. If you do a good job, they'll remember who you are without all that destruction.