Duplication vs. Replication

No discussion is complete without the explanation for these curious industry buzz words. If we had a dollar for every time we've explained this we could probably take the rest of the day off.

In general folks in our business refer to duplicated discs as a disc that was burned or recorded with a PC style drive. Replicated discs are produced using a molding process. The method chosen is usually related to quantity. Most replicators require a minimum 1000 discs in order to justify the high cost of making the first one.so let's look at them in more detail.

We'll start with replication since it is the original way discs were made. In this process the first step is creating a "glass master" or mold. This master can be created from any data source whether it is audio, video or data files. The information is turned into a series of high and low spots in the tracks of the disc. The laser that is reading the disc discerns between the highs and lows and converts them to zeroes and ones, which is the root of binary language. The final product is known as a ROM, as in CD-ROM or DVD-ROM. ROM stands for "read only memory". This method is always used for mass production jobs and most commercial discs you have purchased have been molded. They are compatible with all readers ever made which is where they outshine a burned disc. It has become rather rare to find a reader that won't handle a ROM but in the very beginning of both CD and DVD media there were some made. Cost is a huge advantage to this process as well as the availability of color printing at lower costs.

Duplication is a technology that came along after the original concept of optical media was developed. By now most people with computers have at one time or another "burned" a disc. It's easy, doesn't require mass quantities and it's fast. CD-Lab came into this business in 1997 when the latest recorders were operating at 4X and it took up to twenty minutes to burn a disc. Now the average drives are up around 50X and a disc is burned in under two minutes! There are many CD and DVD print systems available for everyone from the home user on up to industrial applications which has made the versatility of recordable discs a huge asset to millions of people. One rarely used advantage to recordable media is each disc can be verified by comparing its content to that of the master. After the disc is burned it is then immediately read and that data is compared bit for bit to the original.

We are often asked which is "best". Well as you can see by now that is going to depend upon what your individual needs are. Give us a call anytime and we're always happy to go over all the intricacies to determine the best solution for you.