VHS to MP4(usb), DVD, and Blu Ray price question

[King_justin]

Hello everyone!
I have been tinkering with converting VHS and VHS-C to DVD, Blu Ray, and of course the MP4 format that can go straight to a USB. I live in a very rural county where IT services isn't really offered, and the closet town that may offer such services is probably 30-45 minutes away. However, a lot of people that live in this county and surrounding counties work in the cities that may offer such services.

Anyways, I just wanted to give a little information on the situation I am in and the county I live in to get a better answer to my question.

I've did the math and on Amazon you can get a 50 pack of 4x 4.7GB DVD-R for $17. That averages out to be around $3 per DVD disc. Blu ray was similar to about $3-4 per Blu Ray disc, and a 16GB USB is about $3-6 per if you buy in bulk.

Walgreens and CVS website says they offer the services for about $35 (Walgreens) and $25 ( DVD/CVS) and $35 (USB/CVS). Then you have websites that offer as low as $10. I don't think too many people would send their tapes off to have this done because they wouldn't feel comfortable with it. Again, we live in a small town where face to face contact is more important than sending things off to "strangers".

I was thinking maybe $5 for USB, $10 for DVD, and $15 for BluRay with +$5 per 30 minutes?
However, I feel like that is super cheap for the USB price considering I may have to buy one for the customer? I would more than likely take on the $3-6 it would be for the USB though.
I'm not sure what to charge that is fair. I'm not looking to make bank on this. I just want to offer it to the community that also pays me well enough to do the job.

Thanks everyone for the help!

 

[USAFRet]

Buy your own digitizer:
https://www.amazon.com/Elgato-Video-Capture-Digitize-iPad/dp/B0029U2YSA

Buy a VHS deck from the Salvation Army....keep it all inhouse and local.

Flat $10 charge, saved on either USB or DVD, customer choice.

 

[King_justin]

Buy your own digitizer:
https://www.amazon.com/Elgato-Video-Capture-Digitize-iPad/dp/B0029U2YSA

Buy a VHS deck from the Salvation Army....keep it all inhouse and local.

Flat $10 charge, saved on either USB or DVD, customer choice.

Hi!
Thank you for reply and the replies to my other post yesterday.
I already have the capture card and VHS. I have it all ready to go, and I've already converted some of my families VHS. I was wondering more on price. So you think $10 flat fee regardless of how long the video is? What about a blu ray price? I believe I can't get any better quality out of the conversion than what I could put on a DVD, but the blu ray disc would allow them to play on a blu ray player i suppose. I believe most blu ray can play DVDs though?

 

[USAFRet]

Then you're all set.
Yes, I think a $10 flat fee works.

And BluRay is pretty much a waste, coming from VHS. BD benefit over DVD is the whole image quality. You can't upscale enough from VHS to BD to make it worthwhile.

And yes, a BD drive will play a regular DVD.

If someone insists on BD, $15 (or adjusted for however much the BD disks cost)

 

[King_justin]

Then you're all set.
Yes, I think a $10 flat fee works.

And BluRay is pretty much a waste, coming from VHS. BD benefit over DVD is the whole image quality. You can't upscale enough from VHS to BD to make it worthwhile.

And yes, a BD drive will play a regular DVD.

If someone insists on BD, $15 (or adjusted for however much the BD disks cost)

Okay, thank you!

 

[TerryLaze]

I was wondering more on price. So you think $10 flat fee regardless of how long the video is?

I would say for up to 2 hours, anything above that I would charge more.
Repairing a VHS is becoming more and more difficult and the wear and tear on them is pretty high.
You have to consider how many hours of good enough quality playback your VHS has still in it.