Project Gutenberg has a Best Of compilation of their most popular books available for download as an ISO. For those who don't have the bandwidth to download it they have a group of volunteers who will ship out free ones. I thought that it would be nice to set up something like this fir those who are unable to download audiobooks themselves. They could request a book or 2 and then a volunteer could send them a CD/DVD. What are your thoughts?
The CD and DVD Project at PG
http://www.gutenberg.org/cdproject/
UPDATE
I added the poll with the question by hugh.
CD/DVD of Audiobooks for the Bandwidth Impaired
The only problem with this is that it takes more CDs to create an audiobook than it does to burn text books to CD. Smaller books take 2 discs, one if you're lucky. Larger books take 10 CDs. I have a feeling if we started such a project, there would be far more requests than people willing to send CDs.
Check out this discussion ( http://librivox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2500 ) Somewhere around page...well somewhere in the discussion we're talking about sending CD copies of our recordings to a library in New Orleans. Start on the last page and work your way back and you'll find it.
Check out this discussion ( http://librivox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2500 ) Somewhere around page...well somewhere in the discussion we're talking about sending CD copies of our recordings to a library in New Orleans. Start on the last page and work your way back and you'll find it.
Like Kri said... too many requests. As for number of cd's - if these people have a computer but it would take days to d/l an audiobook, a data cd/dvd would do them fine. Would they be willing to pay for the shippng costs, cost of cd's? etc..... Now you are crossing a fine line.......They could request a book or 2 and then a volunteer could send them a CD/DVD. What are your thoughts?
Besides, doesnt EVERYONE know a friend or two with a faster connection?
"Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable
people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress,
therefore, depends on unreasonable people." George Bernard Shaw
people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress,
therefore, depends on unreasonable people." George Bernard Shaw
Befor engaging, perhaps asking the people themselfs will shed some light - with a poll on the website:
"Would you use a CD-shipping service to get a bunch of mp3-audiobooks of your choice delivered to you on a CDrom, sold at cost + shipping?"
??? If wordpress can't do polls, we could link to an open thread in the forum. But it would have to be VERY prominent on frontpage.
"Would you use a CD-shipping service to get a bunch of mp3-audiobooks of your choice delivered to you on a CDrom, sold at cost + shipping?"
??? If wordpress can't do polls, we could link to an open thread in the forum. But it would have to be VERY prominent on frontpage.
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My idea was more along the lines of burning a data CD/DVD with the ZIPped MP3 files on it. This would allow the user to take the CD/DVD and do what ever they wanted with the compressed audio on a computer. It would allow about 2 books for a CD and possibly up to 12 for a DVD. It would be an alternative to downloading the files for those without the bandwidth. I agree that creating audio CD's would be too much to ask for on a volunteer basis.
-Xander
"Quid quid latine dictum sit, altum videtur."
www.zamws.com
"Quid quid latine dictum sit, altum videtur."
www.zamws.com
Well, there's no way we could object to such a thing, because if volunteers want to send CDs of the MP3s to other volunteers that need it...well you get my point I think. If this is something that you feel is important, you should take it on. You'll probably want to find out, as Stephan said, and doing a poll is just teh way. However, I doubt it would need to be on the front page. People would have to engage in the forums to make a request anyways, so...I don't know.Xander wrote:My idea was more along the lines of burning a data CD/DVD with the ZIPped MP3 files on it. This would allow the user to take the CD/DVD and do what ever they wanted with the compressed audio on a computer. It would allow about 2 books for a CD and possibly up to 12 for a DVD. It would be an alternative to downloading the files for those without the bandwidth. I agree that creating audio CD's would be too much to ask for on a volunteer basis.
As with a lot of things here, if someone's willing to step up and do the work, go for it!
-
hugh
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stephen wrote:
"Would you help make a CD-shipping service to get a bunch of mp3-audiobooks of users choice delivered to you on a CDrom, sold at cost + shipping?"...
ie... everyone wants a BMW, but not everyone wants to pay for it. In order to offer such a service, we need a group of volunteers to take it under their wings.
But I agree - a DVD crammed with the zips would be a great thing to me. Not least because it would mean there would be many back-ups all over the world.
I would change the question to:Befor engaging, perhaps asking the people themselfs will shed some light - with a poll on the website:
"Would you use a CD-shipping service to get a bunch of mp3-audiobooks of your choice delivered to you on a CDrom, sold at cost + shipping?"
??? If wordpress can't do polls, we could link to an open thread in the forum. But it would have to be VERY prominent on frontpage.
"Would you help make a CD-shipping service to get a bunch of mp3-audiobooks of users choice delivered to you on a CDrom, sold at cost + shipping?"...
ie... everyone wants a BMW, but not everyone wants to pay for it. In order to offer such a service, we need a group of volunteers to take it under their wings.
But I agree - a DVD crammed with the zips would be a great thing to me. Not least because it would mean there would be many back-ups all over the world.
perhaps we could have a forum section where volunteers reencode books that they already have on their hard drives into more managable bitrates for those with low bandwidth, and send them zipped versions of the files using the standard yousenditl ink and posting it on the forum for others to download as they please.
It would be as simple as a person making a request for a praticular book, and even specifying the desired bitrate or storage limitations of their mp3 players, and awaiting the hellp of a friendly volunteer who already has the book requested.
People who seed large amounts of torrent files would be perfect for the job, especially when files are initally seeded and spread via bittorrent.
of course this requires a willingness to help spread the love in yet another capacity.
This aproach would aleviate the burden of providing cds and put a smaller burden on those with bandwidth limitations.
It would be as simple as a person making a request for a praticular book, and even specifying the desired bitrate or storage limitations of their mp3 players, and awaiting the hellp of a friendly volunteer who already has the book requested.
People who seed large amounts of torrent files would be perfect for the job, especially when files are initally seeded and spread via bittorrent.
of course this requires a willingness to help spread the love in yet another capacity.
This aproach would aleviate the burden of providing cds and put a smaller burden on those with bandwidth limitations.
here is a small tip to those with a 56k dial up connection who don't want to wait to listen to their audiobook files.
Using a program like quicktime for example, you can stream a chapter and listen to it while you are downloading it. For the 64bit files that we offer, I would guess that a 56k dial up modem connection is just fast enough to stream our librivox files.
I figure that a dial up modem runs at a max speed of 8 kilobytes per second 8x8 is 64 bits per second, hence a bitrate of exactly 64.
I am prety sure that quicktime requires you to pay in order to keep the file on your hard drive after it is downloaded, but I am sure that there are freeware alternatives that will allow you to stream and save files.
This solution isn't perfet, but its better than waiting 30 minutes for a file to download completly before you listen.
Using a program like quicktime for example, you can stream a chapter and listen to it while you are downloading it. For the 64bit files that we offer, I would guess that a 56k dial up modem connection is just fast enough to stream our librivox files.
I figure that a dial up modem runs at a max speed of 8 kilobytes per second 8x8 is 64 bits per second, hence a bitrate of exactly 64.
I am prety sure that quicktime requires you to pay in order to keep the file on your hard drive after it is downloaded, but I am sure that there are freeware alternatives that will allow you to stream and save files.
This solution isn't perfet, but its better than waiting 30 minutes for a file to download completly before you listen.
There is an alternative to Quicktime that will allow you to save the file. It is called Quicktime Alternative. It allows you to play Quicktime files without the bloated Quicktime player.
Here's a link:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/QuickTime_Alternative.htm
Here's a link:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/QuickTime_Alternative.htm
-Xander
"Quid quid latine dictum sit, altum videtur."
www.zamws.com
"Quid quid latine dictum sit, altum videtur."
www.zamws.com