[Xastir] MrSid (was --A good question)

[Brian Heaton]

I was one of the ones that asked about support for it. I'll take a guess
its driven by bandwidth costs and complaints from users about download
times. It also lets them fit more on a CD. I don't like it all either.
I'd be happier if they made the full resolution/uncompressed data
available via a bandwidth limited connection. When I was downloading
whole states worth of DOQQs for work I just set the rate limit on wget
and let it ride.

How they (TX) come up with $28 for a CD of 4 geotiffs and associated
metadata I'm just not sure. 

The long and short is we all need to keep a close eye on what is
available and make sure we get data we can use.

			THX/BDH



On Wed, 2003-02-19 at 12:40, Curt Mills, WE7U wrote:
> On 19 Feb 2003, Brian Heaton wrote:
> 
> > 	I don't recall which state at the moment, but I know I've hit at least
> > one that has its 1:24k DRGs online in MrSid format. That was a definite
> > turnoff for me.
> 
> More than a turn-off.  It's a proprietary compression format.  I've
> tried to contact them once so far (they're just south of me in
> Seattle) and haven't gotten anywhere with them yet.
> 
> I have a problem with free data payed for by U.S. taxpayers getting
> converted into this proprietary format, but a lot of states are
> already doing just that.  WY and TX are two that come to mind.
-- 
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Brian D Heaton
Senior Network Engineer
Janus Research Group
(706) 364-9100 x336
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