Compact Disc Based Electronic Publishing

Compact disc mastering costs about $2000, materials are $.50 per disc. Higher costs are for labeling, distribution, marketing, and retailing. Highest costs are for the information contained, value added, database production, amortizing research costs, etc. Per disc costs are lower if there are large pressing runs. CD write-once systems allow one-off production costing about $50.

There are a variety of CD-type products:

• CD-DA (72 minutes of digital audio)
• CD-ROM (660 Mbytes, CLV, archival gold):
  MPC adds in digital audio, ADPCM
  Wonderful illustrations are possible
• Photo-CD:
  Kodak supports 100 images per disk in standard format, each stored at multiple resolutions from thumbnail through roughly 3300x2200
• CD-I:
  Special licensed formats cover images, digital audio (ADPCM levels A, B, C or CD-DA), animations, some digital video, and with optional card, MPEG video
• CD movies (with MPEG or software compression)