Realist notch, 3D CD, and Kodalux

[P3D Adam L. Beckerman <adam@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

My thoughts on the topics at hand:

I don't believe we've solved my mystery since the notch I was looking 
at was located in the bottom right corner of what really is the left image.  
I saw no notch in the middle anywhere on the prints and haven't even 
looked at the negatives yet.  So, the notch I was looking at must have 
been a figment of my imagination and it just so happens that it caused 
me to properly select left and right images for my stereoscope.  How 
they went to L-R-R on the web still is a bit of a mystery, and the ones 
that WERE originally L-R-L, were done the exact same way as the ones 
that ended up as L-R-R.  That's why I was and still am a bit puzzled.  In 
any case, I will look at the negatives when I get a chance to see if I can 
see the 'real' notch.

I think the 3D CD is a great idea.  Dan, it's difficult to tell if you're looking 
for people interested in submitting info., or people interested in buying it, 
or both.  I think you're looking for both, but I have a few comments:  Your 
priority should be to see how many would buy it since the costs associated 
with producing it must be at least accounted for in order for it to be viable 
(this is pretty obvious though).  Actually selling enough is another story...  
You'll need to think about how you're going to market it.  The people here is 
a great start, sure, but I know that at the least, I would be willing to take 
some (on loan) to my local club and try to sell some for you to those not 
on the list but that have a computer.  Placing free ads in club newsletters is 
a great way (as long as the editors are willing to do so), of course promoting 
it on the web, and of course PSA and NSA conferences, etc....  So that's the 
buyer side.  As far as the people submitting info., I'm sure that you'd be able 
to come up with plenty of information to include.  But rather than YOU doing 
all the work, why not leave it up to the individuals to create and submit the 
information to you.  My company has done this for a number of CD-ROM 
products.  The people doing the CD give us say 10MB on the CD, and we can 
submit whatever we want (as little as 0 or as much as 10 MB) by the deadline.  
The first page must be in HTML, and any information in the directory should 
be able to be accessed in some way from that first page (whether through 
subsequent pages or otherwise).  I think this would be the way to go.  Contact 
everyone who has a page, tell them what you're doing and let them know that 
they can offer just their website including pictures, or they can do a custom 
one if they want.  Leaving it up to them allows a lot of freedom to be creative 
and put some great stuff on the CD (although I don't know how many would 
actually do a set of custom pages for it, and the web sites out there are already 
pretty great  ;)  ).  And as an incentive to get more information, you may be able 
to offer them some cut of the earnings (if there are any).  I know that if I got a 
quarter for every CD sold, and you sold 100 (this would be easy I think), I'd 
get $25 (that's very worth it to me for my time to put something together for 
submission).  You could even offer them their choice of a quarter for each one 
sold or a free CD.  Although if they opted for the former and then bought a CD, 
they'd be helping themselves too.  Assuming there were 50 contributors on the 
CD (very conservative), and you sold it for $25, this incentive would account for 
half the price of the CD.  The rest would go to offset the burning and material 
costs (which I would estimate to be less than $10).  Meaning you would 
actually profit by at least 2.50 per CD meaning a $250 profit on 100 sold.  
Please keep in mind I'm just throwing numbers out there, but I think it is a very 
viable product, and the more information that's on there, the more attractive a 
purchase from a user's standpoint.  You get more information providers by 
offering an incentive.  Just my thoughts....

As far as Kodalux is concerned, I think a test roll is a great idea, and like 
Emil said, especially for beginners like us, Kodalux's services are important 
to getting easy and convenient slides.  I would be happy to send in a test roll 
and call the lab AND the main office in Rochester to complain should the 
results be poor.  That seems like the best way to knock some sense into them, 
and get some consistent good results from their stereo-mounting lab.  Even 
such inconsistency that they are producing now should NOT be tolerated.  
Accept nothing less than the best they can do (which isn't what they're doing 
now, obviously)!!

FWIW,

Adam


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