From: joeg@gagme.chi.il.us (joe grosch) Subject: Re: Suggestions for the free Unix projects Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 04:25:18 GMT
A Wizard of Earth C (terry@cs.weber.edu) wrote:
[...deleted...]
:
: 1000 CD's at the lowest figures listed for each step above:
:
: Mastering system: $ 20,000
: 3 "one off" for beta: $ 600 (3 Beta's is *very* conservative)
: First 100 CD's: $ 1,500
: Next 900 CD's: $ 2,700
: B&W paper for front: $ 300
: ______
: TOTAL $ 25,100
:
: Per CD cost: $ 25.10
:
: Assume high "one off": $ 26.00
:
: This all assumes that there is no production loss and the "+" on the $20,000
: means "and some cents".
:
: What did I say again? Oh yeah:
: >: > o A "media charge" of $30 is not unreasonable if CD-ROM's are used
: Maybe next time I should "show my work"... 8-).
:
: The mastering system is used to take data and lay it out in the correct
: file format; it has a "CD Emulator" (2 disks) and a DAT drive for writing
: the master, plus all hardware and software to deal with the creation of
: the master tape. This is not something you can do without unless you
: work somewhere that already bought one and they will miraculously let you
: use it, or you own the company (volunteers, anyone?).
:
: The assumptions about 1000 disks may be wrong; I kind of doubt it; I think
: the number of people buying CD ROM drives to do 386BSD or Linux would be
: smaller than that; however, if they are wrong on the low side, the cost of
: the mastering system amortized out over a larger number of CD ROMs *would*
: drop the cost. 2000 would drop it to 14.05/14.50 depending on Beta costs,
: again, assuming no production losses.
:
I recently spoke to the owner of Walnut Creek CD on the phone. His
company is distributing a CD of the GNU and X source code. He charges $40.00
for this CD. The company I am contracting for is interested in distributing
a product on CD and I was researching costs. The owner of Walnut Creek CD
quoted figures very simular to the above figures, execpt he indicated that
a number of the larger pressing plants will take a tar of the data on
8mm and do the mastering for you. If I remember right he said the mastering
charge was $200.00 or $300.00. That is a lot less than buying your own
mastering system at ~$20,000.00 a pop.