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Posted by doc on 10/05/54 11:51
As you so avidly (pun) point out it's the Apple/Mac inroads that have helped
us :o)
As far as the business segments that is how we have built our business
though the multplicity of multimedia. We have found that cleints seek
communication with their respective clients and potential clients, after all
that is why that advertise to begin with. It is there that we produce
synergy ouput through our "total solution" instead of one side of a three
sided coin. Our competetors can't do that. Their good at one thing and
fail miserably at one or more of the others. I spent 6 months working day
and night in a cold motel with my son who had to quit college when dad lost
his significant $150K+ a year income and we never stopped at nothing to
acheive our goals. Both he and I delivered pizzas for two different pizza
shops (mine was at least national :o) and we put our brains together (his
computers - mine business) and we came up with a dream that we hoped would
change our lives. It did. We bought an old trailer for a grand and put it
on the 30 acres we got to keep out of the fall out and later built a 28 x 40
building that we housed our satellite services (now gone) and servers in
(now moved to dallas at The Planet Data Center) sold the property and
relocated the whole thing to a bigger and better facility and with the
addition of our last facet of our business (video) in early 2005 we're
making it and he's back at school and finishing up his third year, working
summers at a steel mill plus full time at our editing facility.
Your right about the experience though as I've amply pointed out. Allthough
I was in linear editing with pro grear I hadn't a clue about NLE in January
of 2005 and that is why I listened so clearly to the BS (as you all in this
group have clearly pointed out) of sales people, especiall Apple/Mac BS that
nearly sunk what we put together in that motel room on that cold 2000 new
years. Even my son who agreed with our tech that Apple/Mac was the way to
go has turned complete 180 degree and himself bought a Gateway AMD Turon
(sp?) and an eMachines Athlon 64 (sister to our audio machine) that he uses
as a server for the gaming community (i haven't a clue how all that works)
So experience we haven't but bad experience we have . . Apple/Mac.
drd
"Mr. Tapeguy" <mr.tapeguy@pro-tape.com> wrote in message
news:1151261589.462926.178750@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com...
>
> doc wrote:
>> William D: What you say is definately good verbage and definately worth
>> consideration. I could be just some guy off the street with nothing to
>> do
>> or some vietnam veteran who is disabled and mad at the world and doing
>> everything in my power to create animosity to others - - AND - - my not
>> stating all this helps to support such claim.
>
> In fairness, while you allude to a number of business segments and
> various markets you still don't say who you are. Listen, I don't think
> anyone is going to send you a ticking package and I don't think you're
> going to get sued. But Bill asked and if there's no reason to hide,
> why do it?
>
>> The truth however, is that my position is my position and not that of my
>> clients. That is, were I to state the network show, then someone would
>> surely call the network, report our cliams, say that the cliams were
>> inferred as the networks position and . . . well you get the picture.
>> Moreover, many of the people we bail out are apple/mac users themselves
>> (TV
>> Stations) and were that information to get back to their respective
>> bosses
>> who made the purchases of the apple/mac's then . . well, I think you see
>> would really be cumbersome for us to maintain a relationship with that or
>> those clients.
>
> You don't have to name a specific show - you can do a list of shows
> you've worked on that is general enough to not necessarily refer to
> these posts. Surely your company has a website.
>
> So you're saying that you get a lot of work from other post houses who
> simply can't get the job done on a Mac and if their bosses who
> recommended Macs find out the shit will hit the fan?
>
>> At first you might say, BS. Well, we used to post in the Avid slots and
>> did
>> post everything as you say we should, and sure enough a client of ours
>> called and said that someone had called him complaining about our
>> comments
>> about macintosh computers wherein he said that the caller said we were
>> saying that it was HIM making the claims. A lie of course but
>> nonetheless,
>> some upset mac user using our website to learn of our client and then
>> trying
>> to create conflicts between our clients and us.
>>
>> Our objective is to learn and to help. We produce TV production,
>> commercials, event production, and a lot of work for national
>> organizations
>> who just want a quick camera crew and they do the editing. We also do a
>> lot
>> of contract editing, much of which is work for apple/mac clients most of
>> whom are TV Stations who grab a piece of late morning or early afternoon
>> footage and need something quick and dirty for the 5 or 6 o'clock news .
>> .
>> or . . late afternoon and early evening material for the late edition.
>> they
>> choose us for two reasons: 1) they're short staffed or don't want to or
>> can't hold someone over and 2) they don't have a lot of time for
>> rendering
>> and know that we can pop it in an hour or two at the most. As I say we
>> started with one machine and now have two identical machines and in the
>> next
>> days or weeks will add a third to which the machines are networked and
>> thus
>> we can edit content on one, transition on another, title on another, add
>> effects on another, etc. back and forth piggie backing to speed up the
>> output. We have four editors at our disposal and can turn out one of our
>> TV
>> shows in about 8-10 hours from 3 camera miniDV tapes in our hand to ouput
>> media in envelopes for delivery. Moreover with the simplicity of the
>> software to the ease of Windows genre keyboard shortcuts, we have
>> standardized most of the operations to a SOP (standard operating
>> procedure)
>> so that anyone who has ever operated any NLE could edit one of our
>> programs
>> so long as they could identify the equipment (not software - cause the
>> latter is defined in the SOP write up however equipment rack location
>> requires some foreknowledge. When we have the third machine we will be
>> able
>> to turn a tv project in 6 - 8 hours thus allowing us to turn two shows a
>> day
>> for our normal 9a to 9p work schedules. Currently we shoot 3 to 6 shows
>> in
>> a grouping session and then edit them over the next 5 to 10 workdays
>> depending on other workloads. With the new config we'll turn all the
>> shows
>> out in one week while maintaining other workloads.
>
> That's interesting. In our area most of the TV stations use Avid or
> Pinnacle setups. Macs and/or FCS have made some inroads of late but in
> reality, Apple does not have broadcast or news-specific solutions -
> certainly an area of weakness for them.
>>
>> We're in the mid atlantic region but our clientlist covers 92+% east of
>> the
>> Mississippi and mostly in the thirteen original colonies; however, 65+%
>> of
>> our business comes from a couple handfuls of repeat clients not to
>> include
>> our two largest tv production clients. That is, when we do our sales
>> figures we never include our TV clients in our financial discussions
>> because
>> their by contract and at a moments notice we could receive a 90 day
>> cancellation notice with an early cancellation check and that business
>> would
>> be gone. Thus, we never focus on that money as part of our "real"
>> picture
>> as we call it internally. Our "real market" is everyone else, although
>> the
>> revenue from the TV clients are equal in value to nearly half our
>> revenue.
>> Thus if you read this right, you will see that we don't use the TV
>> clients
>> as part of our budget or cash flow, their revenue is bonus.
>>
>> I dreamed this three market business up in 2000 when I was sitting in a
>> cold
>> cheap motel having been evicted from my home when my company had severed
>> me
>> as VP of Sales when they closed and I vowed not to make the same mistakes
>> they did in my business by focusing on the biggie client who I instead
>> will
>> tell off in a heartbeat (see why I don't want our website or name known,
>> I
>> want people to hear the truth without prejudice or fear of restitution
>> from
>> our clients) and thus when I started the business the first of 2002 my
>> first objective was to get a biggie for marketability but focused on much
>> smaller clients using the biggie merely as a reference. Now, we don't
>> need
>> either of the two biggie's and lossing them would just mean we'd have a
>> lot
>> more time to focus on things we want to do but wouldn't have a single
>> affect
>> on our operations or budget other than free up machine time. Why do we
>> keep
>> them? Because without them in the budget, their bonus money buys gear.
>> We
>> paid for our business with cash because we had to. As I began this
>> paragraph, that cheap cold motel on 12/31/2000 was an awakening. I had
>> lost
>> my home and my car to banks and I vowed they wouldn't take away anything
>> ever again in my life.
>>
>> And thus, the readers herein can take this or leave it as they see fit
>> but I
>> post our experience because other folks like those in here helped me and
>> my
>> family climb out of a very deep and dark hole by helping me change
>> careers
>> after age 50 through networking information and ideas on video
>> production,
>> and to date I appreciate that still and pay that back where I get the
>> chance
>> by doing exactly what I'm doing in these paragraphs, by telling the story
>> so
>> that others can see the light and find the path that works best for them.
>> Moreover, if I can help someone avoid the mistakes I made through our
>> blunders, perhaps they'll have the time to pay me back by posting their
>> real
>> experiences so that we too can not make additional mistakes.
>>
>> Your US video producction comrad (hmmm, cold war term)
>>
>> drd :o)
>
> Okay, your experience, once again, does not equate to that of others.
> I think the best use of your time is advising people how to get the
> most out of their Avid and Avid Liquid systems rather than
> extrapolating your experience with Apple to mean that no one should
> ever buy anything Apple. I know that I heard Avid houses say they
> thought the HD render time on FCP 4.5 was too slow but the machines and
> software are a lot faster now so I don't even think that's much of an
> issue anymore.
>
> I am glad your solution works for you and that you didn't go belly up.
> I'm sure we'd all like to know more about your business if ya know what
> I mean : > .
>
> Craig
>
> http://www.pro-tape.com
>
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