This is topic Technicolor charging for pick-up failure in forum Digital Cinema Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Melanie Loggins (Member # 6454) on 02-01-2013, 05:27 PM:
 
Technicolor has announced that they will charge $20 every time UPS can't pick up the drive on the return-by date.

So, I live in a small town. My theatre is open 4 days a week, only two of them "business" days. On those days I might not have a reason to be here before 5. I do come in Monday mornings and I often come in just to try to catch UPS. But sometimes it doesn't work, like this week when I was home with a sick kid 4 days out of 5. I have 4 drives waiting to go out.

And soon I will have to pay $20 because I couldn't be here when UPS decided to come? FTS.
 

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Posted by Tony Mace (Member # 2985) on 02-01-2013, 05:45 PM:
 
My UPS will just leave the call tag and pick it up the next time they are in.....
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 02-01-2013, 06:00 PM:
 
Might as well just charge $50 and tell the theatre to throw away the drive, rather than return it. It would be more convenient for everyone that way.
 

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Posted by Edward Havens (Member # 4715) on 02-01-2013, 06:00 PM:
 
Technicolor needs to start putting return labels in the clamshells like Deluxe does. 98% of the time my hard drives don't go out the day after a title's run ends is because the UPS driver fails to bring me the return label.
 

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Posted by Melanie Loggins (Member # 6454) on 02-01-2013, 06:08 PM:
 
Tony, mine does too. And now Technicolor will be charging you and me $20 every time he has to leave the tag. Also, after 60 days of pick-up failure, they will charge $200 for the drive.

Here is the letter:

As you know Technicolor is committed to providing excellent service to both our Studio and Exhibition clients. We take pride in delivering your digital content and are always looking for ways to better serve our clients.
Since the inception of the digital hard drive distribution, Technicolor has not charged a failed pick-up fee as we do for 35mm prints. Unfortunately, we have been experiencing a high level of failed pick-ups of our digital hard drives. When hard drives fail to return in a timely manner, it jeopardizes our service and can potentially have a negative effect on our service level to you, our customers and to our studio partners. Regrettably “Failed Pick-Up” fees for digital hard drives, similar to those for 35mm prints, will have to be implemented when digital hard drives fail to pick-up at your theatre as scheduled.
Effective February 15, 2013, when it is determined that a failed pick-up was strictly due to your theater not ensuring the pick-up was made by the courier on its scheduled day, you will be billed $20.00 per hard drive.
If you do not return the drive after 60-days from the first notice, there will be an additional charge of $200.00. This charge is to cover cost of the lost hard drive. If the drive is lost in transit, after the courier has scanned the pick-up, the charges will not be assessed.
Our Customer Solution Team is prepared to work with your theatre to ensure the drives get back to us when they are supposed to and not incur the fee. Pick-up notices will be sent to your theatre every Wednesday via email and/or fax notifying which hard drives will be picked-up on Friday of that week. If you will not be finished with a particular hard drive or need studio permission to hold it over for any reason, please contact our Customer Solutions Department immediately to change the pick-up date.
If you have not already done so, please seek out your UPS driver next time they are at your theatre for a delivery or pick-up. Please educate them on where you normally place your hard drives which are ready for pick-up. This will help ensure a successful pick-up of all future hard drives.
Please call 1-800-99FILMS (1-800-993-4567) Option 2 or you may also email at returns@technicolor.com if you have any questions.
We appreciate your assistance and patience during this transition.
 

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Posted by Tony Mace (Member # 2985) on 02-01-2013, 06:15 PM:
 
Hm... Am going to have to have a chat with home office to figure out what to do. My UPS will not come behind the door that separates the public from the back end of the theater - so they will only pickup when someone is here which is normally on a Monday instead of Friday like they are supposed to.

This is gonna get interesting, as mentioned above I wish TC would do like Dlx, and put the label in the box.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-01-2013, 06:45 PM:
 
Its not just the cost of the drive. Its the cost of the CRU caddy as well as the Pelican case. $200 is actually reasonable for a "lost" drive, but I agree $20 for a missed pickup is not.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-01-2013, 07:09 PM:
 
Here, we get a variety of UPS drivers. They are reluctant to put the label on the box and take it, for fear of taking the wrong box. So they will just leave the label, unless I am here to put the label on the box. So this will get interesting... it's not like we can set a clock by what time UPS shows up. In this town it could be anywhere from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM, depending on how busy they are that day.

Maybe Technicolor doesn't know about the "RS" label capability that Deluxe uses. This is actually possible. When National Film Service started shipping by UPS, they were shipping COD. I emailed them and asked if they would just bill the charges to our UPS account number. They did not know that it was possible for them to do that!

Maybe Technicolor just needs to be educated by us real world folks.

On the other hand, the dated pick-up does allow them to know when to expect their drives back. With the RS system they could sit for weeks and TES would have to chase them down.
 

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Posted by Chris Daigle (Member # 7347) on 02-01-2013, 07:34 PM:
 
We had a technicolor satellite system installed about 1 year ago and a Deluxe satellite installed a couple months ago. We haven't had any problems with either system and we don't get physical hard drives in anymore. It also costs 1/2 as much to have each print "delivered" and we'll obviously avoid issues with missed pick-ups. I've heard that technicolor has stopped putting in satellite systems because of budget issues and I'm not sure when they're going to re-start. We were a bit nervous at first not having the drive here, but its been 100% flawless so far.
 

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Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 02-01-2013, 08:44 PM:
 
I got that email, and then a half-hour later I got a follow-up telling me to ignore that since it doesn't apply to me.

Reason being: Nobody picks up the drives here. I haul them down to the local bus depot and ship 'em out from there myself.

Perhaps some of you folks with problems being there when the driver comes to get the package might want to consider making an alternate location into your pick-up spot. When I am going to be out of town for a day I put a sign on my door directing couriers to leave packages at either the dress shop next door or the computer store down the street. Perhaps a "9-5" business in your town would volunteer to be your pick-up location for this purpose.
 

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Posted by Melanie Loggins (Member # 6454) on 02-02-2013, 08:59 PM:
 
Frank, I would be all about that, except I don't have return labels. Do you just leave yours and let the driver label them? Maybe I'll have to talk to mine (who is lovely, just unpredictable).
 

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Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 02-02-2013, 09:23 PM:
 
I think we have a different system here than the one that you have.

I don't usually have prepaid or pre-printed labels. I just take them to the bus depot and they print their standard labels to put on the cases and that's all there is to it. I have an account with the bus company.
 

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Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 02-03-2013, 10:04 AM:
 
Hasn't Tech always charged for a print not being ready? I know I've had to call and get it dropped in the past when it has been UPS's fault.

Our regular driver has a key, and there is a key at the shop next door, but the word doesn't always get spread (and, apparently, UPS corporate doesn't approve of this system).

Drivers here put the labels on and take the print away. As a single screen, there are rarely more than one print to choose. I can see where this would be a problem in a multiplex.

All in all, UPS has been generally OK here, but whey corporate starts enforcing "The Rules" it's a total nuisance.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-03-2013, 12:43 PM:
 
That is the truth. Just for one example....at my day job we just have me and one other employee. All the UPS drivers are our buddies and we know them well.

In the UPS system, when closing out the day, there is a button that has to be clicked which causes a summary sheet to print. The driver then scans the printout before taking our packages. If we're busy, the drivers will just click the button, scan the printout, take the packages and go.

But the "rules" state that the drivers are NOT supposed to touch our computers in any way. So every now and then, corporate sticks its head in, and the driver has to stand there and wait for one of us to come and click the button. It wastes time for all concerned. Then after a week or two things go back to normal again.
 

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Posted by John Roddy (Member # 7348) on 02-03-2013, 03:13 PM:
 
Yeah, this new system concerns me. My theater is a megaplex with 19 screens (100% digital), so we tend to have quite a few hard drives on site at all times. Heck, we have plenty of times where we'll hold on to one print just to run one or two shows in a closet auditorium for a week or two. I once had a pile of about 12–15 hard drives ready to ship on Monday consisting of nothing but prints we'd dropped the previous Friday. Yeah, managing this inventory is a lot of "fun."

For the past…three years(?), we've had a pretty simple system in place: Friday, the UPS guy brings labels and drops 'em off. Saturday/Sunday: I redo the hard drive inventory and prep all outgoing drives for shipment. Monday: UPS guy picks up the outgoing drives. Rest of week: Everybody's happy. So, to my understanding, does this mean I'm going to get charged $20 per Technicolor drive every time I hold off the actual pick up until Monday? Uhhh, not cool?

I'll try giving them a call tonight and seeing how strict they're gonna be about this. Hopefully, they'll just go by which label was used to send it out. If that's the case, holding off the shipment until Monday wouldn't matter since it would still be shipped with the label delivered on Friday.

Also, on a semi-unrelated note, why can't Technicolor just embed these letters in the emails they send? I always end smashing my face into my desk every time I get an email that says "Important message! Please read the attached document." It's 2013, people.
 

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Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 02-05-2013, 12:13 PM:
 
I agree concerning the pre-printed labels that Deluxe provides. I like this because I can slap the pre-printed label on and bring the box over to the "Pack and Ship" store and put it on the "UPS Pick Up" Pile. Don't have to worry about the U.P.S. guy not showing up to pick up the drive at the theatre (odd hours).

In more ways than one I wish that Technicolor and Deluxe would get on the same page. Technicolor provides a log in so you can retrieve your feature keys and your "projectionist letters". Deluxe just gives out the informational .pdf's for the features - no log in to get keys.

I know that they are separate entities, but if they could just be on the same page with all of this!
 

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Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 02-05-2013, 02:25 PM:
 

quote:

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I know that they are separate entities, but if they could just be on the same page with all of this!

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quote: Dennis Benjamin

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The above post is the first I've heard of Deluxe offering the Satellite downloads..

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quote: Ronda Fitzsimmons

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Another benefit, if you operate in NYS at least, is there's no sales tax on film rental if the movie is delivered by satellite. At 8% plus, that's a huge savings alone

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