Emmanuel (and CTPP-news):
See Javier Minjares' recent e-mail. The DVD *writer* is in the $6-7
thousand dollar range; not the *reader* (about $250 incremental
cost.)
Bob LaMacchia pointed out that only two (very new) Census Bureau
products are on DVD. Check out the Bureau's "Why DVD" web site at:
http://www.census.gov/geo/landview/whydvd.html
or do a search on the Bureau's page for the phrase "DVD".
My assumption is that the new Census Bureau's DVDs should work in
any DVD-reader: for your new PC; or Macintosh iMacs; or perhaps even
Sony PlayStation 2.
Unfortunately the Census Bureau is selling their DVDs for $90, and
they're not yet available (at 40% discount) from either
Amazon.com or
Buy.com.
My issue (Census Bureau folks may want to respond) is, will the "PL
94-171 Reapportionment Files" (due out next March); and the "SF1
Short Form Files" (due out next spring/summer) be issued on CD
*and* DVD, or just CD, or other media? IF the answer is immediate
release on DVD, then I would be more encouraged to go out and update
our computers (before the end of our fiscal year this coming June.)
IF, like Elaine suggests, the DVDs are basically a "reissue" of a
full set of CDs, then possibly we could wait....
Are there any other data DVDs that folks know about that would assist
in the hardware acquisition justification?
Chuck Purvis, MTC
A lot of e-mail discussing DVD-reader has come my way.
Someone
suggests the DVD reader costs $7,000 now,having come down from the
initial price of about $15,000.
This makes me wonder whether the computer I purchased last year with
DVD reader (4.8X DVD ROM Drive) is different from what you guys are
talking about. It is a Gateway GP7-500 with DVD Drive, CD
Read/Write, Zip Drive, and 31/2 Floppy Drive). This was purchased
for a little over $3,00.00. Will this DVD Drive not be able to read
CTPP data on DVD?
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e-mail: cpurvis(a)mtc.ca.gov
Chuck Purvis, AICP
Senior Transportation Planner/Analyst, Planning Section
Metropolitan Transportation Commission
101 Eighth Street, Oakland, CA 94607-4700
(510) 464-7731 (voice) (510) 464-7848 (fax)
WWW:
http://www.mtc.ca.gov/
MTC DataMart:
http://www.mtc.ca.gov/datamart/
MTC FTP Site:
ftp://ftp.abag.ca.gov/pub/mtc/planning/
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