Hi Mark. You make some good points. The distributed system is a good one, but is currently not keeping up with demand. Basically, that's due in large part to one of our most active volunteers taking a little break (to which he is very much entitled) so as to deal with more pressing issues. But even with his tireless assistance, and the help of all of our other volunteers, we are still struggling to keep up. On top of that, when the new DVD comes out (something which I expect to happen in the next few months), we can expect to see an increase in requests from the web form. Also, I'm hoping we can arrange some large giveaways to schools, libraries, ETC.. So, to answer your question, I realize that it's not the best situation to double mail the discs. However, within the US, it can be quite inexpensive when using "Media Mail" to send a large quantity. Mailing to outside the US, on the other hand, is another story. Volunteers should continue to burn as much as possible for themselves, but with this system, we will be able to augment their supplies and more evenly distribute the work of packaging and mailing. It will also permit us to create a large quantity of discs should a major giveaway opportunity come up unexpectedly. Finally, just to update everyone, Ian Stompa (a member of this list and another valuable volunteer) has managed to procure several promises of financial support totalling $500, and Greg has given his approval for the rest if need be. If anyone has any contacts who need a nice tax right off, you might pass the word along. Thanks also to the help of Brandon Galbraith, the specific hardware has been selected and will be e-mailed to Greg shortly. I'll keep you all updated on our progress. Thanks again. Sincerely Aaron Cannon At 10:06 AM 6/2/2005, you wrote:

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.)

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