I like this idea a lot, but how would you then distribute the resulting discs to volunteers? The beauty of the distributed production is that many of us are burning and mailing at the same time. Surely with this system, you'd either have to double-mail them (one "bulk" mail to a volunteer and then another to the recipient), or volunteers would collect. Unless what you are saying is that you are gonna do 135 discs an hour, so there's less for us to do? Mark. -----Original Message----- From: Aaron Cannon [mailto:cannona@fireantproductions.com] Sent: 31 May 2005 02:43 To: dvdvol@lists.pglaf.org Subject: [dvdvol] the ultimate burning system!!! Hello all. Today I was trying to think of a way to improve the efficiency of the CD/DVD distribution system and I got to thinking about how much of a bottle neck burning the discs is. When we first started, PG purchased 1000 professionally replicated and printed DVDs for $1000, and that helped us keep up with demand for a while. That was back when dvd-rs cost an average of $1 (I think that that was a whole year ago). :) Lately we've kept up thanks to a few key volunteers running their burners virtually nonstop. However, it occurred to me today that if we are going to keep up with the rising demand (not to mention future mass giveaways) it might be beneficial for PG to invest in a system dedicated solely to DVD duplication. However, when I did some research, I found that such duplication machines cost upwards of $1000. However, when I investigated the cost for us to build such a system on our own, as apposed to purchasing a manufactured one, the cost came down some. Here's what such a system would consist of: A large server case with 11 or more 5.25" front bays. 1 power supply with enough output 9 IDE dvd burners 1 dvd-rom 1 hard drive and 1 Wytron dvd-399 DVD/CD duplication controller. No motherboard, no memory, no mouse or keyboard. Apparently all of the duplication is controlled by the Wytron controller. It has a small display and a couple buttons on the front. The approximate cost of all this is as follows (the below prices are not exact, but just ballpark figures): 9 dvd burners at $50 each. case $150 power supply $50. Wytron controller $250. I have a hard drive and dvd rom which I would donate. This gives us a very approximate total of $900. The only thing we might do to bring that down a bit would be to get the power supply or case donated, or back off the number of burners to 5. Taking four burners out of the mix would take it down $200. If we did centralize the majority of the DVD production, volunteers would be able to focus more on mailing the discs, rather than burning them, and, I believe, would enable them to mail more. Also, it would better position us for those huge giveaways Anne is always seeming to come up with, and any other situation where a large number of CDs or DVDs are required. With such a system, we would be able to produce (assuming it takes 12 minutes to burn a DVD) at least 45 DVDs an hour, or (assuming it takes 4 minutes to burn a CD) an astonishing 135 CDs per hour. Any thoughts? Sincerely Aaron Cannon -- E-mail: cannona@fireantproductions.com Skype: cannona MSN Messenger: cannona@hotmail.com (Do not send E-mail to the hotmail address.) _______________________________________________ dvdvol mailing list dvdvol@lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/dvdvol ********************************************************************** The information contained in this e-mail is confidential and intended only for the use of the addressee. If the reader of this message is not the addressee, you are hereby notified that you have received this e-mail in error and you must not copy, disseminate, distribute, use or take any action as a result of the information contained in it. 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