I was out to dinner a while back with my wife and we were dining at our local dive and we ordered the "house wine". I didn't have to swirl it, smell it, taste it or even look at the bottle. It was simple and actually very acceptable. It occurred to me that maybe a long standing tradition at the company needed to change.
Since our inception we have been media snobs, I admit it. If it wasn't made by Taiyo Yuden or MAM-A we simply didn't want to deal with it. We were very aware that our competitors had entered the "junk" disc market but we chose to stay on the high ground. The problem with the low end market is knowing who really made the discs, what standards did they use, did they pay the royalty, etc. Most of these discs come out of Asia and that is not where you are going to get honest answers or find the attention to detail that we felt was critical. Enter India.
The factory we have chosen runs an extremely tight ship. We have researched and tested extensively. They pass muster and we're willing to put our name on it. The discs record well across a variety of burners and the print surfaces are good. We will have a fairly simple lineup with CD and DVD offered with either Silver Gloss, White Inkjet or White Thermal.
We're offering an introductory special that allows our buyers to sample as few as 100 at the price of a pallet. So check them out and let us know how they taste, er, uh, work.
Showing posts with label cd duplication. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cd duplication. Show all posts
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
CD/DVD/BluRay Disc Printing Methods
There are a handful of methods used to print text and images on optical media. Each has its own niche depending on whether the info is basic text or elaborate art with photos and color logos. The number of discs will also have a huge impact on choosing the best method for a particular job. If you are interested in purchasing a printer you can click on any of the bolded headlines for a link to those printers on our website. Here's a brief description,and review of each of the available methods.
Paper labels printer with Laser or Inkjet systems:
Bad method, turn and run from this. Applying a paper label to a disc can cause potential vibrations due to imbalance and can cause severe data degradation.
Thermal:
Good for basic text down to 6 pt. fonts. Very low cost per disc and is able to print to the lowest cost, lacquer surfaces. The two best known manufacturers of these printers are Rimage Corp and CopyPro. Stand alone printers cost between $3,500.00 and $8,000.00 with automated transporters available for high volume operations. These printers are known for their durability and reliability.
Thermal Retransfer:
Excellent for color work requiring an indelible or totally durable print. Cost per disc are high. Print ribbons runs about thirty cents per disc plus about an extra dime for the special surface. This does not include the base price of the disc. These printers are made by Rimage and Teac. Stand alone printers cost approximately $8,000.00 with automation available.
Inkjet:
Excellent for color but not good in the durability column. These prints will smear or run if they get moisture on them. Costs per disc vary from under a dime to over thirty cents per disc plus the additional cost of the special surface, about a dime more. Entry level printers can be found for a couple hundred dollars while fairly robust production printers with automation exist for about 2,000.00. It would appear that there are a lot of manufacturers of these printers but the reality is they are either made by HP, Lexmark or Epson. For instance the Microboards printers are all based on HP engines.
Silk Screen:
This is not a method you will do at your office or home due to the enormous cost and difficulty in operation. Screen printing has been widely used in the mass production of discs since the inception of CD. The results are generally decent although photos and colors are not at their best here. If color matching a single color is required this is a good solution. PMS colors are routinely run on these printers.This method is expensive until the quantities reach 1K and above.
Offset:
A relative newcomer to the field, offset has become the choice of many for mass produced discs requiring high end color work. Like screen this is a very expensive and massive system to operate and won't be found in general business environments. Also, like screen, costs are high until the volume reaches about 1K.
Paper labels printer with Laser or Inkjet systems:
Bad method, turn and run from this. Applying a paper label to a disc can cause potential vibrations due to imbalance and can cause severe data degradation.
Thermal:
Good for basic text down to 6 pt. fonts. Very low cost per disc and is able to print to the lowest cost, lacquer surfaces. The two best known manufacturers of these printers are Rimage Corp and CopyPro. Stand alone printers cost between $3,500.00 and $8,000.00 with automated transporters available for high volume operations. These printers are known for their durability and reliability.
Thermal Retransfer:
Excellent for color work requiring an indelible or totally durable print. Cost per disc are high. Print ribbons runs about thirty cents per disc plus about an extra dime for the special surface. This does not include the base price of the disc. These printers are made by Rimage and Teac. Stand alone printers cost approximately $8,000.00 with automation available.
Inkjet:
Excellent for color but not good in the durability column. These prints will smear or run if they get moisture on them. Costs per disc vary from under a dime to over thirty cents per disc plus the additional cost of the special surface, about a dime more. Entry level printers can be found for a couple hundred dollars while fairly robust production printers with automation exist for about 2,000.00. It would appear that there are a lot of manufacturers of these printers but the reality is they are either made by HP, Lexmark or Epson. For instance the Microboards printers are all based on HP engines.
Silk Screen:
This is not a method you will do at your office or home due to the enormous cost and difficulty in operation. Screen printing has been widely used in the mass production of discs since the inception of CD. The results are generally decent although photos and colors are not at their best here. If color matching a single color is required this is a good solution. PMS colors are routinely run on these printers.This method is expensive until the quantities reach 1K and above.
Offset:
A relative newcomer to the field, offset has become the choice of many for mass produced discs requiring high end color work. Like screen this is a very expensive and massive system to operate and won't be found in general business environments. Also, like screen, costs are high until the volume reaches about 1K.
Monday, March 15, 2010
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.
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.
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