Re: DVD?

[Ralph Giles <giles@raj.phys.sfu.ca>]

On Sun, 7 Nov 1999, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:

> It might be possible to manage DLT, but obviosly only on a limited scale.
> I think we could ask around for someone with a DLT drive willing to work
> on this. But if there isn't anyone willing to sell them for us then not
> too much point :>

yup.

> > FWIW, I asked cheapbytes about their dvd plans last week, and they
> > said they don't yet see the demand as sufficient to offset the
> > per-title setup costs. They plan to at some point in the future, but
> 
> I wonder if they would feel differently if we handed them a DLT with a DVD
> image on it? 

I don't think so. The concern seemed to be the set-up costs. The per-disk
cost would be cheaper than pressing n CDs, but the set-up for the run will
also be higher; I think that's mostly production, not mastering. Better to
present them with a survey of how many would like to buy potato on dvd.
The freeze slip helps too. :)

Here's their actual response:
---
>From sales@cheapbytes.com Sun Nov  7 16:05:14 1999
Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1999 11:07:46 -0800
From: CheapBytes Sales <sales@cheapbytes.com>
To: Ralph Giles <giles@raj.phys.sfu.ca>
Subject: Re: DVD plans?

At 02:20 PM 11/2/99 -0800, you wrote:
>Hi there,
>
>Having seen the announcement on /. that SuSE is planning on selling their
>6.3 release on DVD, I wondered what your plans were for extending your
>excellent services in this medium. With the larger distributions growing
>to multiple CDs and the near price-equivance of DVD drives, this seems
>like a good direction to go it. Certainly I'd pay up to US$15 for a
>complete Debian 2.2 on DVD (though $10 seems more reasonable).

We have checked into DVD and though the cost of each CD is economical
to produce, there is a fairly hefty set-up fee which causes the cost per CD
to go up quite a bit.

Once the marketplace is more saturated with DVD players, the laws of
supply and demand will allow for more competitive pricing to us and in
turn a lower cost to our customers.

[sigs snipped]
---

> > Personally, I'm fantasizing about a disk with all-arch binaries on one
> > side and source, the complete list-archives and documenation on the other.

Hmm. Is there any way to make this bootable on multiple platforms?

 -ralph