I notived UT Rurope cost 5$ more than UT USA. Why? What do we get in Europe that we didn't get in USA Canada? They claim it's the biggest UT title so far. How is that possible on my worldmap Europe really looks smaller than both USA and Canada. Also I miss some information about which area in Europe is supported?

I understand Allen had to spend more $ on purchasing the data used to generate UT: Europe compared to the North American products.I can't comment on the size of the area covered, but the download is about 300 meg larger. There is some new info in some of the data he purchased, such as beaches and land use in urban areas, which allows better placement of landclass textures in regards to density of buildings, industrial areas and so on.He as also spent weeks trying to get the good compatibility with many of the popular add-ons out there, both freeware and payware.I think the price is excellent for what it offers.Tony

Because Europe is always more expensive - everything there costs more starting from a beef steak and 1 kg of sugar and ending with the terrain data. :(Michael J.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_744F.jpghttp://sales.hifisim.com/pub-download/asv6-banner-beta.jpg

And not forgetting petrol/gas and now natural gas (used for home heating). In fact the latter has got so bad that I'm now paying

My natural gas bill for February was US$421. That's up about 70% over last year. I've been reading about the UK situation on the BBC World website and it sounds like you are having the same problem. I've had it. The house here in Georgia is sold and we're moving to Florida at the end of April. If I die in the hurricanes at least I won't die broke from paying my heating bills.Doug

Hi Guys, I don't often make it outside the UT forum much anymore. But, I wanted to comment on the price, since I have not yet had a chance to explain in the UT forum.It is a valid question, which I have not had time yet to explain in the UT Forums.Tony is correct about several things. The base data set was more expensive than before. Mainly, this is because TeleAtlas knows that they have the only precise water coverage for the Europe region. So, it took some longer negotiations and a higher price to get it. However, the commercial water data was still lacking in some areas. So, for some areas, we had to hire GIS contractors to hand digitize water from hi-res images. This added another couple of months to the process at a pretty significant cost.Lastly, the product is the largest download yet. So, Flight One has to pay for the additional bandwidth. To be honest, I feel fortunate that we can release the product at the current price. There was a point last summer when it looked like we would have to break up the product in 2 pieces.As far as comparing the different UT products, the size of the area covered is really not a good measuring stick to use. A better comparison would be the overall download size. More details = more work = larger downloads. Cheers !Allen

Thanks for the explanation and excellent product!DJ

Doug, that's a lot of money for heat. Ours for Feb. was about 150 US.1600 sq. ft. 4 level split.JimCYWG

I never understood questioning respected developers and trying to claim they would raise the price for nothing else but a desire to make more money. If they had that desire, they definately wouldnt be in this business. Anyway, thanks Allen for that explanation. Personally I think people for some reason question the wrong developers...

There is a belief among a large part of the population that the development cost of software is zero, that the only cost associated with it is marketing and production and distribution of physical media (CDs, booklets, rental space for stores).Everything online (they believe) is free. Bandwidth cost and hosting cost is zero (after all, they get webspace free with their internet account or else can get it for free from Yahoo...).Therefore those evil software companies make what's pretty much 100% profit on their products, especially if it's a download product...All that's of course based on a complete misunderstanding of the cost and processes involved, devalueing the skills and effort of the people involved to nothing at all.Good reason as well to never work in software development for consumer products...

Naah.... developing software is easy and you can charge everything you want. The only problem that can arise is when your programmer spends al his days posting in forums that don't have anything to do with the product he's supposed to make for you Jeroen :-)

>I never understood questioning respected developers and>trying to claim they would raise the price for nothing else>but a desire to make more money. If they had that desire, they>definately wouldnt be in this business. Anyway, thanks Allen>for that explanation. Personally I think people for some>reason question the wrong developers...I can't see that I should have made any such claims. I just asked for the reason for the price difference. And I think I got an exhaustive answer. But I'm curious about which developers you think should be the correct one to question.

>Tony is correct about several things. The base data set was>more expensive than before. Mainly, this is because>TeleAtlas knows that they have the only precise water coverage>for the Europe region. So, it took some longer negotiations>and a higher price to get it. However, the commercial water>data was still lacking in some areas. So, for some areas, we>had to hire GIS contractors to hand digitize water from hi-res>images. This added another couple of months to the process at>a pretty significant cost.>Regarding the water I'm curious about a thing. I use a 76 m mesh for Europe and in the place I live (Swedish west coast near Gothenburgh)the scenery looks awful because of misplaced water. I see rivers floating over hilltops and at the side of hills to the left of two roads instead of between them as it should be. Is there chance that UT Europe will correct this?>>As far as comparing the different UT products, the size of the>area covered is really not a good measuring stick to use. A>better comparison would be the overall download size. More>details = more work = larger downloads. >Considering that Europe is smaller than USA and download size is bigger should imply significantly more details i.e better than the USA title, correct?

>There is a belief among a large part of the population that>the development cost of software is zero, that the only cost>associated with it is marketing and production and>distribution of physical media (CDs, booklets, rental space>for stores).>I'm not among that part (btw I have worked myself with programming)

As with all Flight 1 products theres a no-argument money back gaurantee so you can always try it and see for yourself if the area you are interested in is improved. As the LC is SO accurate it should enhance any detailed mesh product.Frankly, given that it's a drastic improvement even on VFR Terrain in the UK, which in itself is a remarkable product, I don't think you will be disappointed!Allcott