Not many years ago there was a real issue of compatibility with DVD. DVDR would often not play back on set top players and the accepted wisdom was that a DVDR was not the equivalent of a pressed disc. This is true in some respects certainly. A DVDR is actually written in a different way to the way a DVD book compliant disc is created when it is glass mastered and replicated.
In addition to the historic compatibility issues of DVDR it is undeniable that a manufactured DVD with its coating of aluminium is always going to be more hard wearing than a recordable disc, where the latter’s plastic coated writeable (data) side is easily damaged. Although the DVD format is capable of error correcting the results of a few scratches, it is not going to be able to cope with the sustained data loss of more than a few light scratches.
Wind forward to today and we have seen a great change in the ability of a DVD player to read a recordable disc. In fact even the cheapest player available for well under £50 is more than capable of playing back all but the lowest quality DVDR stock, including the much more technically adventurous double layered recordable disc.
With this change in available audience, it has become quite common for even large runs to be considered on recordable discs. Coupled with the reduced cost of the recordable format it has meant that run sizes in excess of 1000 units, usually the staple of replication facilities, are is now very much justifiable as a recordable discs. Added to the fact that an optical disc replication factory still requires at least 8 days (and more realistically 12 working day)s to complete even a small order, it makes the reduced lead time (in the order of a day or two usually) a big factor in choosing recordable discs.
One thing that is also not often appreciated is that despite the very high quality of disc print available for replicated discs, it is the recordable disc that has the advantage in terms of sheer print quality. Print in large factories is geared towards acceptable standard at the cheapest cost possible. With recordable disc there is the option of digital print methods that are not available in replication facilities. These digital print options are very often vastly superior for full colour print when compared to the offset print method favoured by pressing plants.

Of course there will always be a need for very cost effective bulk manufacturing of discs when volumes warrant it but as the DVD moves from being a consumer format to a business marketing tool, it is inevitable that this move towards recordable discs continues.

A number of our long standing DVD duplication clients have gone down the route of using in house solutions for small runs of DVD or CD duplication. This is fine for a handful of discs where maybe the packaging is not a vital component of the project, but there will come a time when due to a number of factors a disc copying project will have to be sent to an external supplier. The reasons could include timing constraints, for example a DVD replication order that suddenly has to be delivered in 2 days not the standard 10 days. Or perhaps rather than the usual disc in a PVC wallet that a client has been doing for simply delivering content, a more impressive packaging requirement is sought. For example a DVD Digipak or lancing pack on recycled card stock is needed for a high profile give away to board level conference delegates. When it comes to any of these factors; lead time, print quality, packaging or quantity; it is necessary to call in the help of a supplier that not only has the capacity to cope with lead time and quantity but also has the expertise and resources to provide a high quality product. With the packaging and presentation of a disc being such a significant part of a promotional disc project, it is important to get things right first time. Here are some pointers to choosing a supplier and how to ensure the project meets your expectations.

Firstly choice of supplier is of course paramount. With the on going economic belt-tightening felt across most sectors, price will always be important but the temptation for the cheapest supplier should be avoided (at all cost!). If you’ve made the decision to go down the route of a product designed to impress then expect a supplier that offers the cheapest option to cut corners somewhere. This could be in the quality of the stock used for printed paper parts and card or perhaps in the QC of the print process. Wherever costs are cut, it is inevitable that the quality will suffer. Don’t think that you have to go to the other extreme however, an efficiently run operation will be able to offer good value discs and packaging that maintain high standards without breaking the bank. Choose a supplier that has been around for a while, they will have built up a level of expertise in their product and have a reputation to protect, so will be unlikely to take your money and run. One tip – a supplier that is at the top of google and has paid for ads may be investing more in their web marketing than their production resources. Optical disc duplication can be is fraught with pitfalls and does require that equipment is maintained and kept up to date.
The next task to get right is your disc and packaging print design assets. It always helps to get print design set up by a professional print designer, as opposed to a web designer who may not have the relevant experience in print. Laying out CMYK print at 300dpi is a completely different skill to RGB web design. Check with the supplier how they wish to accept artwork, the most common format being print resolution PDF files. Check things like the amount of bleed required and that your artwork is of the correct dimensions and resolution. Fonts should always be outlined as this will ensure faithful reproduction of your text elements. With much of the print processes these days relying on automated ripping and printing without physical proofing, it’s essential that your artwork is 100% correct before sending it in.
Of course the master you are supplying for your disc replication or duplication run is also vitally important. For duplication, the simple rule is that a high quality playable copy of your disc on a recordable disc is all that is required. Don’t forget that a duplication facility will make identical copies of what you supply. For replication it’s a different story, if you are manufacturing audio CDs, make sure that you are not sending in a disc full of mp3 files that my play back well on your PC but are less likely to work on CD players. For all replicated disc projects the best choice for masters is always the relevant disc image for the format you are manufacturing. DDP for DVD and CD audio, and ISO for all data formats. And a word about DVD authoring, make sure that your authoring facility is experienced in supplying masters for replication. It’s very common these days to find corners are being cut for authoring and with some “pro-sumer” DVD authoring software, a master that may play fine as a DVDR will have errors on it that prevent it being replicated. These errors will be impossible to detect without glass mastering analysis software and will at the very least increase your lead times and at the worst make you miss your deadlines!

A lot of what this guide hopes to do is make the potential duplication client aware of their responsibilities and what they can do to make a project go smoothly. If a client has little or no experience in the technical and artwork requirements needed then it’s even more important to choose a supplier that can provide the guidance required.

CD as Retro Format?

I never thought I would see the day but it’s official, the CD is now a retro format. I will have to admit here that i am old enough to have spent my formative years consuming music through the other more commonly though of rear formats of vinyl and the compact cassette – any suggestion that i have a few wax cylinders in my collection are complete fabrication! It is plainly apparent that optical disc is a declining format, certainly in terms of consumers and the general consumption of paid for content. Our own personal experience at 10th Planet Digital Media is borne out by the fact that we now manufacture more USB than DVD (by value at least).

However, there are plenty of reasons that make an optical disc still highly viable as a delivery format. Of course delivery over the internet is cheap (some might say free) but there are a multitude of problems that can interfere with the safe delivery of your data bits, from buffering impeding the enjoyment of your film to the inherent minefield that is caused by the range of codecs, operating systems and platforms. It is always safer from a usability point of view to deliver your package as bits on a physical format that is removed from the factors beyond your control that could prevent their delivery.

Having said all that about data delivery, this is not the real reason for the resurgence in discs, certainly in CD. It all comes down to the simple fact that discs come with packaging. And these days packaging is the main driver for this renaissance. Although overall figures for sales of CDs as a music format are falling, the average price of a disc is, if anything, going up. This is due to the reliance on interesting and collectable packaging to differentiate the physical format from the digital download. A true fan will see their purchase not simply as a way to consume the music, but as the acquisition of a collectable and desirable object that reflects their favourite artist’s image. At 10th Planet we are working more and more with artists that demand unique, interesting and collectable packaging for their release. Often including multiple formats ( CD, VInyl and USB) and unusual materials.

Despite the reduced demand for CD Replication, a carefully planned project including some tasteful creative cd packaging will bring value to a CD release that could elevate it from music delivery format to a collectable with longevity. Call us if you would like to discuss your next release.

I had a clear-out recently. The room at work affectionately known as the “Technology Graveyard” was bursting to the seams and it was time to reclaim some real estate.

Amongst the endless carcasses of PCs and Macs, semi working monitors and mysterious 19″ rack mounted boxes with names like “Finalizer” there was a piece of history that brought back many memories. The 4 units had fairly recognisable form factors -a rectangular box in a beige cream colour that has become shorthand for “hi-tech, functional, not sexy”. The rear of the box featured some laughably clunky SCSI ports and a standard 3 pin mains socket. No clues here. The front however was far more familiar, with a fairly recognisable optical disc tray and eject button. To the right was a substantial power button and just above this a very retro looking logo proclaiming “LaserMemory”. It looked like something that Hans Solo might have carried with him on his adventures – substantial and exuding power but yet painfully dated and retro, not quite steam punk but maybe “diesel raver”. The biggest clue however was printed neatly in the middle of the drive’s tray – a screen printed logo proudly proclaiming “DVD -R”. Just in case the purpose of the drive had not been made clear, the designers saw fit to add , in plain text, the words “DVD-R Drive” in the top left hand corner of the drive itself.

Yes, this was the first commercial DVD recorder the world had ever seen. At the time it caused a storm and it’s fair to say started the process that revolutionised the optical disc industry. It was designed to be used by DVD authoring companies to burn masters for replication and also to write check disc DVDs to quality control the authoring process.

As it was pitched at companies who thought nothing of spending £250k on a PC to create DVDs this unit was pitched at a fairly ambitious £3500. Yes, that is correct. More than 100 times the price of a current burner for a unit that wrote discs at a whopping 1X. It took over 40 minutes to burn 1 disc. And the discs weren’t cheap either, coming in at over £15 each (that’s an expensive coaster). There were no other options, so if you wanted to burn DVDs at the turn of the last decade you paid the price.

I was lucky enough to own a company that had the funds to purchase not one but four of these beasts and it formed the heart of our DVD duplication service. It was the most expensive DVD tower London had ever seen and it wrote 4 discs at once.

Nearly 10 years later we again bought the latest in optical disc technology, this time Blu-ray. The first BDR drive we bought cost over £200, less than 10% of the cost of the original DVDR burner. Using the drop in cost of the DVDR burner it follows that a BDR burner will soon be available for less than the cost of a Big Mac. Somehow I doubt that. It’s pretty obvious that the cost of Blu-ray recording technology is going to drop but the current evidence points to BDR being a far less pervasive format, destined to not only being overtaken swiftly by other optical (and possibly holographic) formats but also solid state memory. The meteoric rise of DVDR as the most ubiquitous recordable format on this planet is highly unlikely to be repeated in the near future. Certainly not by a format that will most likely be the last of the “Hans Solo” generation of 2D optical drives.

CD and DVD duplication has an inevitable environmental impact. Taking care in the choice of print method and packaging materials can go a long way to minimizing this.

The inherent environmental cost of producing DVDs and CDs is something that most people commissioning either CD duplication or CD replication may be aware of, though the full extent of this is often not recognised. It may be obvious that a DVD is made of plastic (polycarbonate to be precise) and that this must have some impact on the environment. In addition to this, DVDs have a reflective layer of aluminium which is sputtered on to the polycarbonate surface. A DVDR disc also has a layer of organic dye added (the recording layer). Organic in this context does not mean wholesome – it refers to the branch of chemistry that deals with these hazardous hydro carbons!

The process of printing (or decorating) the disc is one that arguably has the most potential for environmental cost. Whether it is DVDR duplication or DVD replication, the disc will require some printing so it can be identified (and to look good too!). The options for printing are varied but the most common for large volume runs are screen printing (sometimes referred to as silkscreen) and litho printing (more correctly referred to as offset). Both processes involve a great deal of waste and the flushing and disposal of environmentally damaging chemicals. Screen and offset printing start by exposing film of the artwork (involving the use of toxic chemicals and plastics) and the making of screens or plates. Screens have to be washed out after use resulting in more chemicals being flushed away. In addition screen and offset inks are inherently toxic and cause more hazardous waste to be dumped into the environment.
Finally before the job can be printed the printer needs to be run in to settle down, usually requiring up to 50 or 100 DVDs to be printed before the print is satisfactory.

In stark contrast to this, the latest generation of digital DVD printers require no plates, films or screens and no hazardous chemicals in the setup process. A DVD duplication job can be printed directly from the digital artwork with no setup. Although it is possible to print replicated DVDs this method is ideally suited to the on demand, low volume run size of DVD duplication. The machine prints the first disc exactly the same as all subsequent discs meaning that there is no disc wastage either.

If your next DVD production could benefit from lower environmental cost, and quicker turnaround and not to speak of the highest 4 colour print quality available you should look no further than digital printing. If you want your DVD duplication project to look as good or better than a replicated DVD found in shops then this is also the best option.

Environmentally friendly DVD packaging

It’s not a well known fact but 100% recycled Card uses more bleach in the whitening process during manufacture of the board than virgin pulp, so is actually more damaging to the environment. There is a better solution that truly environmentally conscious companies have been offering to its clients. A solution that is both better for the environment and actually cheaper.

The most eco friendly CD and DVD card wallets are 80% Recycled and 20% FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) sourced board. This uses less bleach to make the board, it’s also cheaper as the heavy bleaching process adds greatly to the cost. And because the 20% virgin pulp is FSC certified, it is guaranteed to be from a sustainable source.

This board can also be used to make other forms of CD and DVD packaging; valid options for clients that do not wish to use plastic packaging for their discs.

Lancing packs (a card wallet with an extra flap), and digipaks (2 or more panels with a tray) can also be made from the same board. Although a digipak does have a tray that is usually made of plastic to house the disc, it can easily be replaced with one made of corn starch for a completely eco friendly CD pack that will completely decompose.

With the addition of foam studs to attach the disc the creative options open up greatly – a disc can be stuck to any flat surface or incorporated, for example, into a book or a bespoke recycled card box.

Another popular misconception is that rough looking board is recycled, or somehow better for the environment. A card wallet can be made with the board reversed (i.e. the smooth surface turned to the inside) which reveals the rough textured board as the outside of the wallet. This gives an interesting texture to the board and can be used to great effect in the right CD and DVD packaging design, but is not necessarily an indicator of the provenance of the board. Once card has been processed it is virtually impossible to spot the difference between recycled, part recycled, virgin or FSC approved board.

Once you step outside the box (so to speak), it is possible to create exciting and eco-friendly packaging solutions for CD and DVD, while still keeping cost realistic. It is essential that you select a supplier with the experience and the sources for all the options available.

More information about DVD packaging and DVD duplication from 10th Planet Digital Media.

With the bewildering number of choices available for printing on recordable CD and DVDs, how do you choose what is best for you? This guide will help you in selecting the best disc print method for your application. Each disc print method will get a brief overview and why it is best for certain applications.

DVD duplication and print examples

When it comes to CD & DVD Printing nowadays there is so much choice that unlike paper printing (where run size and cost are the main factors), you’re faced with the daunting choice of Litho, Screen, Inkjet, Digital and Thermal printing on CDs and DVDs or even a combination of 2 or more of these.

So how do you determine what is best for your run of CDs or DVDs?

As a basic guide, stick to the following principles; solid colours should be screen printed, as should Pantones. CD & DVD artwork consisting of photographs or CMYK mixes with lots of graduations and tints will look better litho printed or better still printed using the new generation of UV cured CD and DVD printers. One of the best examples of this new print process is a new printer developed by Sun Chemical; its resolution, vibrancy of colour and gloss finish gives picture discs an almost 3D feel to them.

Screen printing requires the artwork to be split up into constituent colours. A film is then exposed from each of these colours (usually including a white base). From this film a screen is made; this is a 12cm square porous mesh with the area not to be printed remaining as a non permeable area. Ink of 1 colour is forced through this mesh with a rubber blade (known as a squeegee), onto the surface of the disc. Screen printers can have up to 5 colours, applied one after the other. Once the ink has been applied the disc is passed under a powerful UV lamp that cures the ink, solidifying it. This method allows for some creativity, such as not applying ink in some areas, revealing the silver disc layer beneath, or applying special varnishes to give specific areas of the disc high gloss or conversely a matt finish.

Litho printing also starts with photographic exposure used to generate plates. In litho (also more correctly known as offset) the print is made up of 4 colours; cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK), also usually on a white base.

Artwork is separated into these constituent colours and from the exposed films 4 plates are made. This ink is applied to these and rubber rollers then pick the ink up, reapplying it to the surface of the disc. Once the 4 colours have been sequentially applied then the disc is also cured under a strong UV light.

The latest generation of disc printers use UV cured ink and multiple print heads that are similar to consumer inkjet but on a much bigger scale. Each colour is applied by 8 separate heads which dramatically increases resolution and variable droplet size allows greater variation in shades. A digital printer such as this will print 1200 discs per hour compared to a consumer inkjet’s 30 or so. Once the ink has been applied to a white base it passes under a UV light to be cured into a solid, glossy and durable finish.

Inkjet and Thermal print offer a cost effective solution for very small runs of full colour printed CD & DVD and the lead time is normally a matter of hours rather than days, though this of course depends in the size of the duplication facility.

Inkjet printers use the same technology found in consumer printers, with a modified caddy to take a disc and sometimes automated disc loading and unloading.

Thermal (or thermal transfer) prints the image using a colour film that is applied using a high temperature process. This is a particularly expensive and inefficient way of printing discs as there is a lot of waste film from the areas of the disc that is unprinted. It is also a very slow process.

Solid colours and pantones should be avoided printing with either of inkjet or thermal as pantones will be difficult to match and solid colours will exhibit banding or lines.

A professional duplicator will be able to not only offer any of these methods but more importantly be able to advise on which of these methods is the best for your artwork.

More information about DVD printing and DVD duplication from 10th Planet Digital Media.

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