Affordable Charts? Finally?
I just got off the phone with a fellow who is an official distributor
for NOAA charts.He called to say he has recently compiled a 2 DVD set of all 3000 or so
NOAA charts, and is offering it along with a bunch of trial downloads
of various navigational software programs for $30 or $40. (That's
right, there is only one "zero"). Also available is a west coast version, with Pacific Coast, HI, AK, etc
for about half the price. He's ending me a review copy of the west coast version in the mail.
I'll report back once I get a first hand look at it, or maybe somebody
else is among the 400 and some people who have purchased one of these
in the first few weeks of availability. Can it be? The entire inventory of NOAA charts now available for about
what we used to pay for one or two paper charts? If so, that would be
great. |
Chuck
Oct 23
2006
|
| Burned DVD video seems far more tolerant of errors. I've had HORRENDOUSLY
bad reliability problems with burned DVD media. This being from several
different brand discs, different burners, software, PCs and even locations.
Seems a good many discs just don't want to let you record multi-gig files
onto them. Well, they'll let you RECORD but you're screwed if you want to
read them back whole. And I'm talking about storage intervals of sometimes
less than ONE MONTH! This in a controlled temp/humidity environment. It's
bad enough that I've gone back to TAPE. Note, I'm talking about DVDs here, not CDs. I've had better luck with CD-R
media, but they're not large enough to hold the files involved (large
..tar.bz archives of XML data) -Bill Kearney |
Bill
Oct 25
|
| Density. The DVD format is much more dense, so any bleeding of the dyes in
the media, and you can easily be beyond the error correcting code facility. |
Calif
Oct 26
|
| Light will burn out the image. I have some that sat near the window
too long and they won't read. Others, the same age, I keep in a
cabinet are OK |
gfretwell
Oct 24
|
| I don't know - I'd be willing to pay that for a data base of all the
NOAA charts. I like maps and refer to them all the time - it would be
kind of neat to have them all in one place so when JimH says he went
there, you could just look it up or Calif Bill or Chuck or who ever. Maybe I'm a sucker, but hey.... |
Short
Oct 24
|
| Are these stamped DVDs or just burned ones? Anyone can download and burn
their own DVDs these days. But burned DVDs are proving notoriously
unreliable. Stamped DVDs (like CDs) are far more reliable. If he's just
selling free data onto burned DVDs it's hardly worth paying anything for
them. Just download and burn 'em yourself. |
Bill
Oct 24
|
| Why are burned DVD's notoriously unreliable? I know there are problems
with DVD+ and DVD- and people trying to "burn" protected DVD's, but if
it is in the correct format and the orginal is not protected, why are
they having problems? I really have not had any problems with viewing
burned DVD's, is it just because I am lucky? |
Reginald
Oct 24
|
| Burned CD's can change. The reason being the construction. The critical
part of a CD is not the clear side but the shiny side. A pressed CD has the
dimples pressed in and then the coating is applied, and the distance from
the surface to the reflective coating does not change. A burned CD,
diffuses an internal material. If heat and chemistry happen, that diffusion
can grow or change. The reason a CD works is the light source is reflected
from the shiny coating or the diffused internal area. The diffused or
dimple is 1/2 wave length in depth, so you get a cancellation of light. A
dark spot. If there is damage to the reflective surface, then bad data. |
Calif
Oct 24
|
| I read at some point in time: A burned CD has an approximate storage life of only 3 years before it can
start having data errors simply due to aging. They are not recommended for
long term storage of important documents or files. Interestingly, magnetic media (tapes) have an estimated data storage life of
approximately 100 years. Eisboch |
Eisboch
Oct 24
|
| I agree that the price is reasonable and having all of the charts is
nice (been there, done that). On the other hand, being able to
download them all for free is a nice concept, especially since our tax
dollars paid for them in the first place. It always frosted my butt when I had to pay Maptech's high prices for
electronic charts when they had their sweet heart deal with the
government. |
Wayne.B
Oct 24
|
| I think the value is in the indexing and organizing, along with the
sampling of various electro-nav programs contained on the disc. I don't
know about you, but I'm not inclined to spend too many hours at a task
in order to save 30 bucks. |
Chuck
Oct 24
|
| http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20040407020458data_trunc_sys.shtml |
Gene
Oct 24
|
|
I think they are talking about commercial originals. The ones you create on
your CD or DVD burner on your computer (CD-R, DVD-RW) are the ones that have
a much shorter data storage life, according to what I read. I have some
homemade CDs that are a few years old though .... and they still work. I
think ..... (haven't used them in a while) Eisboch |
Eisboch
Oct 24
|
| On that we can agree which is one reason I don't use Maptech. |
Short
Oct 24
|
| >http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20040407020458data_trunc_sys.shtml Scienceagogo? Sounds like a dance club in New York. |
Short
Oct 24
|
|
Same here. I have never had a CD that I burnt fail yet, although I do
have to clean them once in a while after being handled a lot. What theoretically is supposed to happen to the data burnt onto CD's
over time? |
JimH
Oct 24
|
| I don't know. The original music CD was simply a polycarbonate disk coated
with aluminum (done in a vacuum process called "sputtering" and then
protected with an overcoat of lacquer done in a spin process. A CD-R differs in the respect that there is an additional layer of some type
of organic dye that reacts to the laser when writing data. I suspect that
it is the stability of the dye that has been exposed to the beam that
determines storage life. I looked around the 'net and there are all kinds of opinions on storage life
ranging from a few years to over 100 years. Heat and humidity appears to be
the determining factors, other than physical abuse or damage. Eisboch |
Eisboch
Oct 24
|
| I don't know how old this article is, but it does list results from quality
testing of CD-R's from various manufacturers: http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom/cd_quality.shtml |
Oct 24
|
| I've had a number of them deteriorate in 5-7 years, many of them were
really cheap blanks I used to backup my audio CD's and left in my car,
so in addition to being cheap they endured temperature extremes. They
weren't visually damaged but skipped more and more until they wouldn't
play. I've had other CD-Rs more than 10 years old still fine. |
James
Oct 24
|
| >for NOAA charts. |
Short
Oct 23
|
| >what we used to pay for one or two paper charts? If so, that would be
>great. Why would you pay $30 or $40 when you can download the exact same
charts for free? *That* (free) is about as affordable as you can get. :-) http://nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/mcd/Raster/download.htm |
Wayne.B
Oct 23
|
| Because it is worth 30 bucks to have someone else download them and write
them on a DVD or two? How many hours would it take you to do it
yourself? And nothing stopping you from going into business selling
them for 25. The data is public domain, from the government, right? del |
Del
Oct 23
|
| I think for selling them you have to license them from the Feds. |
Calif
Oct 24
|
| If you're already sitting at the computer doing something else, it
really doesn't take all that long once you learn the process. Most
folks really only need a small sub set of the entire chart catalog. You can download 10 or 20 charts in a matter of minutes. |
Wayne.B
Oct 23
|
