I'm almost done editing a video for a camp my dad owns. I made about 200 dollars for agreeing to edit it and distribute the videos to the people who ordered them.

What is the best way to make copies of about 30 VHS tapes? The tapes will run at about an hour in length, and I need to ship them out in a week or less, so using a real time VHS copier will take a long time. Are there any businesses out there that will make a certain amount of copies if you pay them? I need to get this done, and any information would be helpful. Thanks.

"Don't breathe or I'll kill you!"

There are many businesses that offer mass production of VHS tapes, most under $5 a copy.

Just check your local telephone listings under Video.

I think I can help ya out, cause this actually is my part time job / business.

Yeah, there are companies who specialize in JUST this, and theyre called duplication houses. (or dubbing)

They do DVD and VHS duplications, and most houses do any number, but the higher the copie number, the less the price is for each one. For example, I did a job last year that called for 25,000 DVD copies, and each was $0.70 each. But if i do smaller jobs (which is the normal 20-50), DVDs are usually between $3.50 and $6.00, depending on what house I use. (example, see chart at http://www.discmakers.com/rom/product_pages/cdrom_services.php ) VHS is the same way. They can go real cheap for lots of copies, and can get up to about 5 bucks for small loads. Packaging can also be done, from simple paper sleeves to fully designed labels and boxes. Some copanies dont do "short runs" which is what ur looking for. I dont do very much VHS work anymroe, as most of it is all on DVD. You might want to check around, some companies can do short runs for cheap, but i can give you a couple links. good luck. Try some of these places.

http://www.usadubs.com/
http://www.vds.com/

"This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time"

Thanks, Jason. I might go with one of those sites, but that would cut down on my profits A LOT. Thanks for the info.

"Don't breathe or I'll kill you!"

Wouldnt it be more economical to just buy tapes for 99 cents each and then copy them yourself with a two VCR set up? You can just rent one from blockbuster if you dont have two of them..

later comrade

-spenser

number one, any tape that costs 99 cents is a piece of ****. Especially if your being payed, you dont want to provide a crappy product.

secondly, that is what he's saying, is that he doesn't want to spend the time to do it one by one, although that will be the most cost efficient way.

The links I gave are to professional companies, and there are probably at leas 50 large companies just like it elswhere, but yeah, thats how much they charge to do it. Good luck with your solution though.

"This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time"

Oh by the way, your only getting $200 for 30 copies? How many hours did you put into it? What did this job invole?.. sounds like your getting scammed... but i dont know how much you put into it....

"This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time"

What was your project man.

25,000 copies!!!!

I thought I had a good gig this month.

25,000 copies, how the hell did any dubbing house manage to do that.

You gotta tell me about this gig man.

Jason, I am being scammed. But, I agreed to do all this and there's no way of backing out. My dad let one girl in free to the camp because she agreed to film everything that went on. I attended the camp, so I couldn't have been the one with the camera. Turns out the girl screwed up a lot of stuff (she had nightvision on during some pretty important events). And the last day of camp, my dad announced that if anyone wanted, they could buy a camp video for 7 dollars. I had no idea that he was going to charge so little, and I didn't get a chance to talk with him about it until after camp was over. It's not like we can tell everyone who ordered videos to give us a little more money. I got ripped off. AND he only gave me two weeks to do it. The editing wasn't the hard part, but duplicating will be. I got 200 bucks for the videos, minus 70 bucks for all the tapes, and now we have to duplicate them all. I might end up getting about 3 dollars.

This is the first year we are doing this, so if I agree next year, we are going to plan everything out and I'm definitly making more money.

"Don't breathe or I'll kill you!"

Yeah.... $7 a copy is ridiculous. I charge typically $30 for a copy of anything that is under 50 copies (VHS). But, its a good learning experience. And im glad you say your going to plan it out better next time.

I dont know if there are any places like this where you live, but here in LA, there's a place downtown / hollywood area thats kinda like a self serve A/V service center. They have duplicationg racks and all kinds of stuff that you can come in, pop in your master, and make dubs. They obviously charge time that your there, and materials and such. That would be ideal for you, but the only one I know of is in downtown LA.

quote:

---

Jason


What was your project man.
25,000 copies!!!!
I thought I had a good gig this month.
25,000 copies, how the hell did any dubbing house manage to do that.
You gotta tell me about this gig man.

---

It was a project I did for a medical company called Pressure Products Inc. They made fiberoptic cameras for heart surgery, and special instruments for driving up from veins in the leg to the heart. Another company had produced the videos, and I was handed it all on Beta, then encoded in MPEG 2 and authored an interactive DVD. They wated 25,000 DVD copies in paper sleeve mailers. I had to design the cover too. They used them to mail the DVDs across the world to doctors and medical centers.

you should have seen the amount of boxes that showed up at my door one day. Probably an entire FedEx truck's worth.

But yeah, duplication houses do that.... picture it this way.. All the DVDs that you buy for movies... think how many they make... like The Matrix for examople... how many the sold so far? over 100,000 DVDs? more? half a million?

They dont do it like you think they do.. just one by one... its all done in huge factories and plants where they can do like 1000 discs a minute.

So thats the scoop on duplicators.

"This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time"

What software did you use to make the interactive DVD?

How much did you make?

I do DVD authoring on DVD Studio Pro on a PowerMac G4.

I chanrge an hourly rate for all editing and post production studio work.. $55/hr, when I give a quote to a client for the duplications, I ususally mark up the quote I get from my duplicator 10%.

This is always subject to negotiation, however, and sometimes I will do a job or much less than my normal rates, depending on who the client is. Example, I try not to charge an arm and a leg to people such as my teachers, friends of my family, people I already know, etc.

"This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time"