Yet another nail in the UK disc replication industry, as VDC goes into administration. With the ever shrinking market it comes as no great surprise, but it is still a shock to see what was probably the UK’s largest DVD replication facility go under. VDC serviced a large proportion of the UK independent film distribution market, at prices that some felt were not viable for a UK business. The European plants will no doubt absorb the extra units, but the reduced competition will certainly not be a good thing for distributors looking for a new supplier.

A good time to remind people that 10pdm offer keen prices for DVD replication and authoring.

Stanley Productions Ceases Trading

*** UPDATE – The Stanley Productions brand has been acquired by The Television Set Ltd.  A great Soho stalwart lives on, though sadly the Wardour Street shop is no more.***

Stanley Productions was incorporated over 35 years ago, and on the 5th of July 2013 went into liquidation, closing a chapter in the history of tape sales and duplication services in Soho, London.

Many years before I set up 10th Planet, I used to buy reel to reel tape and editing blades from Stanley’s (yes, I am that old!). The place never really changed much and despite later running a company that competed with them on some services, I always had a soft spot for the ‘building merchant’s’ style trade counter and the ‘stack em high, sell em cheap attitude’.

The closing of their doors says a lot about the market for video tapes (something we stopped selling years ago) and also the authoring and duplication industry. Selling something as cheaply is possible isn’t always the best business model. Time and time again we have had to rescue projects that clients took to Stan’s and their technical ability or print knowledge were not able to provide the quality required. We gave up matching the “DVD Authoring for £50 with menus and subtitles” quotes as we recognise that its better to charge a realistic price in order to provide a professional service than to race to the bottom.

A sad day for the industry as we lose an icon that we have all grown used to.

We will of course be more than happy to talk to any customers that require disc duplication, video transfers or authoring who are now looking for an alternative supplier please call us on 020 7434 2345.

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.

10th Planet Digital Media recently completed DVD authoring on the first of a 12 part series entitled “Price of Kings”. The first in this ground breaking documentary series of films, “Yasser Arafat” reveals the sacrifices made by one of the most controversial leaders of the 20th Century.

After a tender process lead by Creative Director Joseph Barnes, production company Spirit Level Films commissioned 10th Planet to provide creative authoring services for the worldwide release of the DVD. The London based digital media facility designed menus, standards converted the footage, encoded and created the DVD master for production. The entire project was completed in less than two weeks at 10th Planet London’s authoring facility near Waterloo in order to meet the tight deadlines imposed by the DVD release dates.

Richard Symons of Spirit Level says of the project “I’ve worked with 10pdm before and as usual, the design brief was hit spot on. We provided HD video assets as well as multiple audio streams to work with and the project was delivered in time to make our release schedule.”
With the remaining 11 films scheduled for release, this series looks set to be the political documentary of the decade.

Trailer and more information on the series at http://www.priceofkings.co.uk

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.

After over 10 years in Soho we have grown too big for our offices and are moving back to our South East London roots.

I don’t know how many of our clients have been to our Central London shop in Wardour St. but if you have you may have had to fight your way past a veritable mountain of cardboard boxes of jobs going out, stock coming in and supplies needed to keep our busy production department running.
Yes, after over 10 years in W1 we have finally decided that when you cant see staff over mountains of cardboard, then the place is too damn small. We have taken a long lease on a fantastic new place in SE1, conveniently close to both Waterloo East and Borough Market (I can feel the waistline expanding already!). With 3500 SqFt of warehouse space and ample adjoining offices, in a building populated by internet startups and telecoms companies, we are very excited to have a new home we can grow into.

We will of course be offering all our usual fast turnaround DVD duplication and mail fulfillment services, just with a bit more room to breathe!

Our new address is active from 14th November, click here for all the details.

A sign of the economic times perhaps, but we take no pleasure in announcing that Amstore CD Duplication (seemingly part of the Amstore Group) have gone into administration. 10th Planet Digital Media will of course honour any pricing to their client base and we will do everything we can to make sure that no CD and DVD clients of theirs suffer as a result of this sad news.
Our thoughts go out to the management at this difficult time of what used to be one of the major players in the UK CD Replication and Duplication industry.

It should be added that this Amstore is not related to the US company of the same name.

Due to the continuing crisis in Japan, stocks of HDCAM SR are severely limited. This has meant that what stock is available is on an allocation basis only. This effectively means that broadcasters and large facilities will be able to get some stock but smaller companies will find it very difficult to secure both HDCAM and HDCAM SR. As a result tape prices have gone up, in some case by over 100%. Stand definition stock is also experiencing some price rises and shortage, though not as severe as HD.

If it wasn’t for the fact that solid state video storage solutions are similarly affected, it would be another nail in tape’s coffin. It will be interesting to see how much tape sales recover by when supplies improve, as digital workflow and delivery is looking very attractive at the moment.

10th Planet is one of the UK’s leading suppliers of Promotional USB through our sister website WeAreUSB.com.
Since the earthquake on Japan on Friday 11th March we have seen huge increases in the cost of the flash memory that is at the heart of every USB drive. As a result prices for USB memory have risen by as much as 20% in the last few days. Supplies are very limited and although we have some UK stock for fast turnaround orders this is selling very fast. If you have any USB projects that are required in the next few weeks please contact us for the latest developments.