Is there a DVD around (private or retail) with the Australian Routes on it.
I would love to get one to save all the downloading.
I am just new to MSTS
cHEERS
bRIAN

Personally Im not against the Idea, but I cant speak for the thoughts of the other Authors.
It would have to be free to keep within the freeware boundaries. No postage or CD costs.
I doubt though it will ever happen as I remember an english author cracked the sads with a UK website selling Route CDs "oh my mistake" Charging many times the cost of a blank CD and many times the postage to cover so called costs. I remember having a similar argument with the same webmaster over similar issues.
This resulted in a brilliant freeware author leaving the scene and asking for all his items to be pulled which resulted in pandemonium for months until similar Items were built by other people.

Hi all,
Perhaps it is timely for us to actually give serious thought to CD/DVD distribution of Australian MSTS items.
From my own point of view, there are two SAR routes, 36 locomotives and 45 rolling stock ready awaiting release with a third route and more locos and rolling stock coming.
I have already distributed my own items to a number of people who are on dial-up.
However, there are legitimate costs involved.
Supply and burning the CD/DVD/jewel case and eventual replacement of the burner.
Printing (personalising) the CD/DVD - nice touch.
Post Office package.
Stamps.
These account for about $9.00, so I have no problem in covering my actual costs in providing the service.
There is a very significant gain to the User of having the CD/DVD in that when reloading the routes and rolling stock becomes necessary, no panic about the items no longer being available - how many times have we been faced with that scenario?
Steam Media Productions is no longer hosted by Rail Page. The National Railway Museum is no longer hosted by Rail Page. MSTS has died the death of a thousand cuts on Rail Page and Steam4Me is increasingly fragile for more reasons than may be immediately apparent.
I would be happy to provide such a service, (I have time, incentive and desire) and I am wondering where the other Australian MSTS builders feel about such a service being set up.
Cheers
Sarfan39

Gidday Allan,

I was just thinking this morning on similar lines - I'm doing some work on Chris Nelson's NSW-NW - this cannot be distributed as a download, as it is already 3.4 GB in size, so has to be on a DVD.

I fully agree with your rationalisation on the 'fixed' costs involved in the creation and distribution of a CD/DVD, however I don't think the discussion has gone anywhere near far enough.

To do a new CD/DVD, in terms of time involved, in going out and buying the media and case, burning the disk, making a suitable 'label', going to the Post Office to get CD/DVD mailers and then buying the appropriate stamps, packaging it up and posting it, has a 'fixed' cost in direct outlays, but it has a time factor as well, and that is where the problem comes in - I think it is probably pretty reasonable to suggest that all that involvement in making the DVD would take around an hour per DVD.

If I produce a new route DVD, I'm quite happy to 'wear' the time expended, if it is only a few copies 'for friends' - but if it is a popular route, what if 100 users want a copy of that DVD - there is a VERY distinct difference between 'giving' a few odd hours, to having to give 100 hours or more of your time for free - and the problem just gets worse if there are many more users exceeding 100. A browse of several popular Australian routes clearly shows in excess of 500 downloads or more is very much common place, and for some routes (e.g. CTN), in the 1000's.

I think you would have to factor in at least $10 per hour for your own time expended in making multiple DVDs (and remember that $10 is only about half the Minimum Wage for most wage earners - you're not going to get rich making hundreds of DVDs at $10 per hour - far from it) - so if you add the 'direct' costs, as mentioned by you as $9.00, plus the 'time' cost, you get a DVD that should be costed at around $19.00-20.00.

Quite obviously, there would be a great 'hue and cry from the masses' if we tried to charge that amount, after all they would say that it is 'freeware', but that 'freeware' has a very real cost, not only in 'direct' costs but 'time' costs as well. And remember, I'm not talking payware here, simply the realistic cost involved in distributing multiple copies of a route on DVD.

I open the floor to discussion.

Regards, Brian

Gidday Brian,
Yes, I understand what you are saying and totally agree.
If, and it is only an "if", we should actually have to contend with the demise of Steam4Me and no other alternative is found to provide tha bandwidth particularly for routes, then we as a community will need to agree on an acceptable alternative (or two?).
I have several ideas at the moment, but have no wish to flag them yet, except to say that an agreed member of the community distributing via CD/DVD for all members is a good starting point for the discussion.
Cheers
Allan
PS I hope the dramas of the past days have now been resolved. I spent the last ten years of my working life in the Retirement Industry, and fully understand and remember all that is involved for all that are involved in those moves.

I am but one of many willing to cover the costs of producing DVDs & time spent on getting routes/rolling stock to " market ".
The availability of DVDs will help in the prolonged life of MSTS. We all appreciate the time & effort put into the production of MSTS "downloads". Ian 73yo !

Count me in on this one.

If distribution by DVD is the only way to obtain routes that are either too large for the average download, or the sites available for large dowloads dry up, I do not find it unreasonable for the Authors making the content available to recoup their expenses.

Afterall they are doing us all a big favour by making content available in the first place. $20 or so is a pittance compared to the effort put into actually creating the routes and or loco's and rolling stock.

How about if you want the route etc, you send a self addressed CD carrier with return postage attached with a new blank CD and a nice fresh $10 note inside to the Author, then when that Author has the time, they burn the DVD and just pop it back in the post.

Just a suggestion.

Marc H

I personally would like to see all the routes on DVD but one of the problems that I can see is the time factor. Using Russell Beer as an example: Russell has three routes at present with a download of say 500 for each route, that is a download of 1500, now it takes 1 hour to burn a DVD, so we have a time factor of 1500 hours. Now Russell works at his job for 8 hours a day and he spends 1 hour travelling to and from work a day, he has to sleep say 7 hours a day, he has to spend some time with his family, say 2 hours a day, now that is a total of 18 hours a day, so without doing anything else Russell is going to be able to burn 6 DVD's a day, so it is going to take Russell 250 days to burn 1500 DVD's. So now we have every hour of Russell's day taken, so when is Russell going to be able to create more routes, locomotives and rolling stock? Are those gimme pigs that were around on Rail Page going to wait for 250 days for their DVD's? I do know that there are DVD burners that will burn 8 disc's at a time in around 10 minutes but they cost around $1000 to $1500. I know Russell, Allan, Brian, Chris and all the other route builders put in a lot of time and effort in creating these routes for us I would not like to see any pressure placed on them by anyone to hurry and burn a DVD. Unfortunately I cannot see an easy solution to the problem that could arise. By the way I would be willing to pay for the DVD's.
Regards
Harry

The problem is its alright when all the work is your own but when you add the 3rd party addins thats where things start getting sticky.

As I related above you only need 1 developer to get his nose out of joint and demand you pull all his content which happened on UKtrainsim and then we are right up the creek.
I saw it happen, Now this author doesnt seem to have a problem with freeware downloads as he didnt demand his content which is prolific in many AU routes to be pulled, It only affected one website which was charging for Route CDs and still does.

This is murky water we are treading in, In a perfect world not driven by Egos the idea would have merit but its not.
Whilst I agree in principal getting all the appropriate permissions would be a nightmare with some people insisting on their Cut so to speak even though in reality there would be no cut to give.

I think you are being a bit unfair to UKTS.
UKTS CD/DVDs cost £4.40 and according to google....

UK£ 4.40 = 7.8756136 Australian dollars.

This is a lot less than the costs quoted above.

Might be a good idea to have UKTS distribute Aussie routes via UKTS with a slight price increase to cover postage to Australia. This would also make Aussie routes available to a whole new audience.

It would be up to the person organising the CD/DVD to get permission to include other peoples work along with the promise not to withdraw permission during the life of the current cd/DVD - whoever distributes it. It should be made clear that no payment will be made but a free copy of the CD/DVD will be given if requested.
One person at UKTS got upset when he didn't get a free CD. He didn't ask and give his postal address so how was he to get it.

Be warned that organising the CD/DVD is not easy.
Getting permission for every item on a route is hard if you cannot remember where you downloaded it from. Emain addresses can be out of date or the person is no longer involved with MSTS.

Hello Ian -

I'd like to make a few comments, based on your comments - your comments in blue, mine underneath in black. Plus some other comments regarding this topic in general.

I think you are being a bit unfair to UKTS.
UKTS CD/DVDs cost £4.40 and according to google....

UK£ 4.40 = 7.8756136 Australian dollars.

This is a lot less than the costs quoted above.

That is a reasonable assumption - for the moment !!!

However, I have been buying UK magazines for well over 40 years, and as part of that I closely monitor the UK/Aust exchange rates to see just how much I'm getting ripped off.

Right at this moment, the Aussie Dollar is the highest it has even been over the past 20 years or so, probably due to the Aussie situation within the World credit crisis, and this is only a TEMPORARY situation - I'm expecting that the UK/Aussie exchange rates will come back to 'normal' within the short term - HOWEVER, historically over the past 20 years or so the 'average' rate has been that A$1 generally only buys around 40p UK (give or take a few P either side) - that is a ratio of 2.5 times - so, in the medium to long term, a UKTS CD will cost GBP 4.40 x 2.5 = A$11.00. This is substantially ABOVE the $9.00 costs described by Allan.

For example, this month I bought a copy of Model Rail - UK cover price is GBP 3.30, the price on the Aussie newsagents stands is A$11.95 - that is a ratio of 3.62 times. I've questioned the newsagent many times over the 'rip off' prices we pay, but he always states that the Importer/Distributor sets the price, not the seller. Over the last 40 years I've been buying UK magazines, the Distributors are always the first to raise selling prices when the exchange rate varies, but NEVER reduce the selling price when the rate becomes more favourable.

I think that UKTS is doing an excellent job in making and distributing Community CDs, at a more than reasonable cost, but when you really look at it, it is Matt and the rest of the Peddlesden family who, due to their extreme love and dedication to train simming, put in the humungous amounts of 'free' hours in making and sending the CDs.

Might be a good idea to have UKTS distribute Aussie routes via UKTS with a slight price increase to cover postage to Australia. This would also make Aussie routes available to a whole new audience.


Many Aussie MSTS users have no interest in UK trains, and as such probably don't even know UKTS exists, let alone having to join UKTS to be able to order CD/DVDs of Australian routes. I accept your comment that it would make Aussie routes available to a wider audience, but if you look at the 'traffic' in the Aus/NZ sections of the forums, there doesn't seem to be that much UK/European interest in Aussie stuff anyway, except for a few 'diehards'.

It would be up to the person organising the CD/DVD to get permission to include other peoples work along with the promise not to withdraw permission during the life of the current cd/DVD - whoever distributes it. It should be made clear that no payment will be made but a free copy of the CD/DVD will be given if requested.

Fair enough comment regarding getting permissions and preventing withdrawals of models used in the route, however I think there are two different methodologies in giving 3rd party authors a 'free' copy. If the route is a freeware route available ONLY via download, the author generally gives permission, with the provisio of his name being mentioned in the credits, and the author would in all probability download a copy of the 'finished' route for himself from the public downloads.

However, it is a very different situation where the route is available on CD/DVD, even if it is only a freeware route. For example, lets say a freeware route uses models made by say 50 3rd party authors (not an unreasonable number considering the free exchange of models between authors) - then the CD/DVD 'distributor' would have to give out 50 free CD/DVDs - if you take Allan's direct costs of $9.00 per disk (and that is ignoring the costs of the time factor as described in other posts above), the distributor is up for $450 of direct expenses to give out those 'free' copies - my question is, just where is the $450 going to come from to be able to do this. The 'distributor' is barely covering his own direct costs to distribute the CD/DVD in the first place, and is not making a profit, so there is no 'fat' available to cover the $450 for sending out 'free' copies. I cannot see any way around this problem.

One person at UKTS got upset when he didn't get a free CD. He didn't ask and give his postal address so how was he to get it.

Over the last few years, I have received a couple of 'free' CDs from the UK - some have been direct from the route author as a 'reward' for permission to use my models in his route, some have been where the author has 'requested' UKTS to send a 'free' Community CD as a reward, and in one instance a 'free' CD from a restoration group selling a 'charity' CD to fund new restoration works on heritage stock.

In all these cases I have been extremely grateful that they have given of themselves to provide me with a 'free' CD - in all cases I would have been quite willing to 'purchase' those CDs, but my situation won't allow it - I am unemployed with NO income (have been trying unsuccessfully for more than 3 years to find a job - same answers all the time, I'm either 'under-skilled', 'over-skilled, or in most cases just simply too old), as a result I do not have a credit card or any other means of 'buying' any products of any kind from outside Australia - what little I do buy within Australia is only because of the generosity of my wife sharing some of her income with me.

Be warned that organising the CD/DVD is not easy.
Getting permission for every item on a route is hard if you cannot remember where you downloaded it from. Emain addresses can be out of date or the person is no longer involved with MSTS.

In essence it is literally becoming impossible to get permission for every item, as existing model authors withdraw from the MSTS community and 'do other things'. Most 'readme files' with 3rd party models generally allow free use, with acknowledgement, in freeware routes that are distributed by public freeware downloads, but getting permission to distribute on a CD/DVD will be nearly impossible. I reckon that half the authors will be impossible to contact, and the remaining half will want their 'cut' from 'invisible profits'.

I really don't think there is an answer to distribution of CD/DVD freeware routes that will satisfy all parties involved.

As for my own routes, I have no problem with 'wearing the costs' for a few odd copies for friends, but I'm not going to entertain expending potentially hundreds of 'free' hours producing CD/DVDs for 'all and sundry'. I already provide MSTS users with 'free' routes that have taken me hundreds of hours, if not thousands of hours to build - but I draw the line at expending excessive hours 'burning disks' rather than getting on with the tasks of continuing to make new routes.

Regards, Brian

If it is all freeware then why couldnt someone charge whatever they want/market will bear for the process of making the DvD? They are giving away the content but charging for the work involved in burning the DvD. As long as they dont claim any of the work themselves or misrepresent it as payware. It should be made clear to people that it is available elsewhere on the net for free download.

Some people would be happy to pay for the convenience and it may help to get the aussie routes out to a wider audience. Maybe it could be a collaborative effort driven from a site like this. Maybe it could even be used to help a charitable cause in a small way. Something similar has been done for MS flight simulator 9 called Vista Australis.
www.flightsimstore.com.au/product_info.php?products_id=307