[QuadList] Why buy a quad

[Ted Langdell]

On Apr 28, 2011, at 12:28 PM, Shai Drori wrote:

> So there you have it. I know this is not a smart business decision  
> if I look only on the financial side. but I think I am entitled to  
> some fun as well. ;-)
> Shai


That's why a lot of the folks on this list are running Quad machines!

Its this group's version of working on and driving older cars.  And I  
know of at least one member who does both. Well.

At the same time, you can't afford to go in the hole transferring Quad  
tapes for people, so you would do well to drag out the spreadsheet and  
figure out how much it will cost to set yourself up and then transfer  
the quantity of tapes you have in mind.


Setup costs:
Machine costs 				(Units, parts, shipping, customs, hours on the phone  
making arrangements : )
Refurbishment of machines	Good question?
Space remodeling/additions	Air Compressor, filters and piping				
						Electrical work (labor) to add
						Electrical wiring and parts for outlets and amperage for  
machine, pix, QC monitoring, air compressor, HVAC
						HVAC (new or improvements to existing system)
						Permits and inspections

Miscellaneous:				Tape storage shelving
						Oven for baking
						Tape cleaning machine? (Add electricity provision costs here and  
operating costs below)

Operating Costs:
Head hours needed:   Number of tape hours to be transferred/average  
head assembly life = number of head assemblies (or refurbishes) needed  
x cost of refurbishing
Could look something like this:  4000 tape hrs/500 head hrs (if you're  
blessed) = 8 head assembly "lives" x $4000 per "life" = $32,000

Ongoing maintenance = 		# of average engineering hours required per  
100 hours of tape
								Parts required per 100 hours of tape

Machine cleaning supplies	Lots of lint-free wipes, 99.9% alcohol and  
other cleaning items!

Quad tapes to practice the "art" of transfer with  (Gotta learn on  
something... and customer's tapes aren't a good idea)
				
Electricity:				AVR-2 will pull less than VR-1200 or VR-2000. Added AC  
and Pix, waveform, vectorscope will use ______ watts
Space value				What's the value of the square footage the machine and  
needed support gear take up
Labor:					What you need to get out of it to cover your own time
Overhead					What does the business need to cover the costs of  
managing the enterprise

I hope I've not forgotten something important in this stream of  
consciousness list.

If you take the costs of setup and the operating costs... you can work  
out a formula involving the number of tape hours you want to transfer  
and come up with what it likely takes to transfer an hour of tape.   
You may be surprised. As in "Yikes!"

And that's not calculating that hour of tape time = actual time spent  
getting a good transfer. You'll spend more than that on each tape...  
and will have to clean the machine during tapes, sometimes as well as  
between tapes.

Fixed site vs On Location
It might be interesting to explore what it would take to buy a "rack- 
ready" SD outside broadcast truck or trailer... already plumbed for  
power, AC and wiring, a generator... then put air compressor and  
refurbished machines in it... and go to the customer's location.

The separate sections—what used to be Videotape, Video/engineering,  
Audio, Control could be set up as tape storage, tape prep/cleaning  
transfer, sleeping or office area.

Or create your own spaces inside a trailer that's essentially four  
walls with power and HVAC.

That would open the door to more work in the Middle East, I think.   
Possibly elsewhere that customers don't want to let the tapes out of  
their eyesight, or can't due to government regulations.

OK... I gotta get back to writing Vario quotes.  Anybody want to by a  
film transfer system? We can put them in a truck too.

Ted

Ted Langdell
Secretary

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