Rusty, when you say that you were shooting your PD170 in wide mode, do you mean you were using the cameras internal 16:9 stretch wide mode?
Would you say that using a PD170 and a Century Optics Anamorphic Adapter would work better, rather than softening up the PD170's picture using the cameras internal wide mode?

....The reason I haven't moved yet would be teh added expense of a new computer system (I have a Pentium 3.4 Hyper system currently), and capture, convert, and render (to SD 16:9 DVD) times would be too time consuming to be cost efficeint currently for me.

Brides won't pay more for HD over SD because most of them won't see a major difference. The way the footage is shot and cut is much more important, as well as the way the DVD is presented (packaging, menus, etc.).

In Reply To

While content is and will always be king, brides will pay more for HD if it is sold to them correctly. At least my experience suggest as much. We charge double for HD what we charge for SD and nearly half of our clients opt for HD. I know others are having the same or even greater success in up selling couples to HD.

In Reply To

Half your clients are paying double for an HD upgrade? That's awesome! What are you delivering their video on? BD or HD-DVD? And what has been the compatibility rate?

rennidj,

Thanks for your input on this thread. I have a few more questions for you, if you don't mind sharing:

1) What is the average SD package price of the clients who are paying more for the HD upgrade? My average SD package of only those clients choosing HD is around $2,400. With HD the total cost is about $3,900, though we have hit $6,000 three times in the coming year so far.

2) What size market do you serve (small, medium or large)? Medium size market with total three county population of about 2.5 millon and roughly 25,000 weddings annually.

3) Within your market, are your SD prices competitive with other wedding videographers, or are you priced at the higher-end of the market? My SD prices are at the lower end of the higher end - make sense? Most other vendors I work with - photogs, DJ's think of me as high end but there are many videographers priced higher than me (but most are less).

4) For the SD packages, do you shoot HD and downconvert? Or do you shoot with SD cameras? Everything is shot in HD. Some couples will upgrade after the wedding when money is not as tight. If they do not upgrade we down convert in camera and edit in SD

I'm guessing you cater to the higher-end market, and that's where I'm aiming to be in a year or two. Any other input is appreciated, of course.