Hello. You are approaching a multiple DVD set as an alternative. Is there any reason for this? I've read your other comments about special collections of various sorts and wanting to cram as much on one DVD as possible, but you didn't address what I said previously. Eventually, there will be too many books to fit on one DVD even without pictures. Why not start moving towards multiple DVDs now while we can before this is mandatory. Even though you and I are blind, you must still consider that many books are useless without the pictures, not to mention books of pictures only. Also what about the audio files and other items which are usually excluded? You could include everything PG has to offer by using two DVDs. I don't really see this as an alternative, I see this as a requirement. Below, you write: At 09:04 PM 9/16/2005 -0500, you wrote:
You bring up another alternative I have considered. That is creating a multiple DVD set. The problem I see with this is in the free disc giveaway. Right now we send out a DVD and an extra disc for them to give to a friend. Adding more discs is obviously going to increase the costs while almost certainly doing away with the extra disc.
It's the give away project I was thinking of when I was talking about cramming as many books on a DVD. Obviously, for the people who can download, we can create as many ISOS as we want. I was talking about the give away project also. Again, is the goal to just give as many away in any condition no matter what or is it to give away lots of books in a useful format with pictures to show them that there are
Yes, but how many of those extras are actually being given away? Do people tell you that they are going to give it to someone? In other words, you might be wasting the extra DVD anyway if it isn't being given to someone. I think cost is really a non-issue. On sale, blanks cost 25 cents or less in the US. Even if the cost is just too much, I still think it's worth it even if you can't include a set to be given away. You can always include a note that if someone else wants one, just ask. Another idea would be to start giving away CDs instead of DVDs. Still send out DVD sets when they ask but throw in a CD also for them to give away. That might actually be better if the idea is to let as many people as possible know about PG. If the goal instead is to just give as many books away as possible regardless of how useful they are, then I agree that you should throw away everything but plain 7-bit text and hope for the best. I think that makes PG look bad though since now a lot is available in pdf, html, etc. thousands of books freely available online? If the former, then forget all I said about multiple DVDs. You're right that pictures are not important. If the later, you should include pictures and html versions at a minimum and break them into multiple DVD sets. That has the advantage of showing people that PG is not in fact just plain text although almost all books are available in that form. I would like to respectfully disagree with something. You seem to think that offering huge ISO images for download is no big deal since anyone with broadband can get them. I have broadband but it takes me a very long time to get a 4.7 GB file. For many people, it really isn't practical to burn their own DVDs. My main computer doesn't have a DVD reader. I have a computer with a DVD burner but it doesn't have enough disk space. There is a huge error rate with a file that size and it is a huge pain to combine that many smaller files. Almost all DVD burning packages are expensive, so it would probably cost more to download and burn your own than to just get one sent. Please try to keep this in mind if you are going to create a bunch of ISOs of various sorts. That isn't the easiest thing in the world for people to use. CD images of course are much easier and more practical. Finally, I'm curious about something. Since you are blind, are you putting labels on the DVDs? Are you making labels? I have never found an accessible program to make disc labels. The best I found was covers which I don't want. I would love to find a CD/DVD label making program which I can actually use.