DVD Duplication Services

Quality DVD Replication

Brian G Fisher — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 18:30:22 +0000

There are many factors the go into providing a quality Replicated DVD. As with most manufacturing, process control and metrics are the fundamental to building a solid product.

ISO9001 Certified DVD Manufacturing:

During every step of a manufacturing process, all it takes in one mistake in any of the many steps to compromise the quality of a DVD. A good manufacturing facility will often have fundamental documentation procedures for every step. This documentation is the backbone to keeping each step conforming to the correct action and specification for that particular step. We Replicate all of our DVDs in an ISO9001 2008 certified plant. ISO certification ensures that all processes are documented and verified. Without ISO certification, there is no independent evaluation of a facility that they are doing what they say they are doing. This is a critical step in the manufacture of a good DVD.

Extra Quality Checks of your DVD:

The second general part of maintaining good control over quality is the quality control checks that are put in place in the process. There can often be steps that are skipped to reduce cost. For example, we run quality control processes every 5000 units, this ensures that if a job going over 5000 units is created, we start from the beginning and all line testing is done for each batch of 5000. We run Torsion testing on sample discs from every batch to make sure the disc integrity is within specification. Once a disc is made, it is 100% ID checked to make sure the content is correct on each disc. These are two examples of very rigorous testing that can be eliminated by “sloppy” manufactures to reduce cost.

Licensing Requirements of your DVD:

Another important factor in the Replication of your DVD is compliance with royalty payments. We provide DVD Replications that are manufactured under the Philips and Sony License. Typically a replication company has to pay approximately 4 cents for each DVD Sold in royalty payments to the patent holders of the DVD Technology. Again, if a facility is not paying these royalties, this is first and foremost illegal, and secondly, putting you, the client, at risk. Sony and Philips have the right to confiscate any DVDs that have been manufactured without proper royalties paid.
So these are just 3 elements that go into Manufacturing a quality DVD.

If you need more information on our DVD Replication or DVD Duplication Services, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We are always eager to discuss our facility with potential customers and earn your business by providing a quality product.

Industry DVD-R Shortage / Shutdown of Taiyo Yuden Subsidiary Factory in Fukushima

Brian G Fisher — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 23:13:05 +0000

For the first time in 3 years DVD Duplication.net is expecting to see the CD and DVD Duplication industry raise prices. A Taiyo Yuden subsidiary factory that is located in Fukushima was damage in the March 11th earthquake. TY was reported to have structural and equipment damge to their facility there and was forced to shut down for several weeks. This has had a ripple effect on the entire DVDR and CDR industry. First there was the TY anticipated shortages, then CMC, Ritek, Sonik, Verbatim, MBI, Memorex, TDK, Imation all sited a shortage of burnable optical media and have increased prices from 20 to 30% over the past 2 months.
CMC’s CEO had stated that he believed it to be a sellers market and for that reason, plus the increase in oil prices, justified the price increases.

All of this will have a significant impact on current BDR, DVDR and CDR duplication pricing in the second half of 2011 as the industry as a whole will need to increase retail pricing to make up for the increase in disc costs.

How To Proceed with your Ontime DVD Replication Order

Brian G Fisher — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 22:09:10 +0000

To proceed on your guaranteed on-time order we will first need:

1. PAYMENT DEPOSIT of 50% – We accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover.
2. LABEL ART
After you have your artwork in the attached DVD Copycat template, you can email it (if under 25MB). If you are not sure of the size or it’s larger than 25mg, just mail it along with your master.

CRITICAL INSTRUCTIONS
Please submit artwork as an un-flattened/un-merged file to make sure template lines are not printed. If you don’t know what this means, (or it sounds like jibberish to you) , I suggest you call for our help.

If artwork is not properly templated it will delay your delivery date. I don’t want that. I’d rather help you get it right. (purr)

Ensure my receipt of your artwork by 11am. This way, you’ll be ensured that we’ve started processing your order that day. If you have very tight deadlines, It is your responsibility to ensure I received your artwork (just in case your email failed).

3. MASTER FOR DUPLICATION – Send physical, production-ready master to me at:

DVD Duplication.net
74 Crestline Drive, Suite 9
San Francisco, CA 94131

CRITICAL INSTRUCTIONS:

If we receive your master by 11am, we’ll start processing your order that day.

YOUR RESPONSIBILITY

- extra charges & delays for late masters,
- late artwork,
- incorrectly delivered artwork

I hope this information is helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions.

DVD Duplication.net offers peace of mind with our guaranteed on-time delivery!

- Higher quality discs offer more compatibility and far greater longevity – better & greener discs keep your data from eroding in just a few years.
- DVD, CD, Bluray duplication/replication & finished label art, sleeves or jewel cases.
- Your personal account manager handles every phase of your project. Easy communications. Well-managed, on-time projects: No surprises!

Best Quality DVD Short Run Printing Available

Brian G Fisher — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 05:55:19 +0000

In 2010 we invested pretty heavily in upgrading our short run CMY thermal printers to the latest and highest quality printers available. We exclusively use the Rimage Everest 600 printers for our low volume DVD Duplication. These printers have fantastically superior printing quality, both in resolution and uniform solid color coverage, while providing a completely scratch resistant, water resistant, permanently embedded image on the disc. I am proud to be able to provide such a great DVD Duplication printing solution to all of our customers. Every time we print a disc, I can have complete confidence that we a really providing a great product with a truly superior print quality.

I have always felt that providing the best available quality is the very best way we can keep our clients coming back. Whether that means investing in the latest printing technology, or making sure that we schedule and delivery on time. We continue t o strive for a perfect experience at DVD Duplication.

It has recently come to my attention that as pricing in this market becomes more competitive, many DVD Duplication companies are opting for lower quality, lower cost print solutions. In my opinion this is not a good solution for those who seek our a truly professional quality product. It is indicative of a philosopy of cost cutting and quality reduction.

We will alway stay focused on quality. For more information on our printing capabilities, please don’t hesitate to give us a call at 888.889.2926. We will always be happy to help.

Blu-ray Duplication Still Neglible Compared to DVD Duplication

Brian G Fisher — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 00:30:54 +0000

At DVD Duplication.net we have been watching and gauging the interest in Blu-ray Duplication for the past 2 years. Blu-ray duplication has become more popular in 2010, but we have yet to see any significant volumes of sales for Blu-ray Duplication services. DVD Duplication and Replication continues to be the main focus when delivering DVD-ROM and DVD-Video content to the majority of our Clients. We have, however, see an uptick in the amount of Blu-ray duplication for data related archiving. The Higher capacity 25GB Blu-ray disc has about 6 times the storage of a standard 4.4G of usable space on standard DVD. So for this reason, we have seen more data archiving, as the price for 6 DVDs is higher than the cost of one Blu-ray Disc.

Quality DVD Duplication 101 revisited

Brian G Fisher — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 19:48:56 +0000

Periodically I feel it important to revisit the issue of “quality” in regards to DVD Duplication. This market has been under considerable price pressure over the past 2 years. Many duplication companies, I believe, are concerned with the anticipation of online content reducing demand for hard deliverable DVDs, Blu-ray Discs, and CDs. These two factors continue to make it more difficult as a manufacturer to provide a quality and reliable product, as often times DVD Duplication is considered a commodity product. This is not a correct perception, there are many factors that go into providing a good solid product that is delivered on time. The primary ones are using good quality blanks and having a business structure that can support accurate communication and maintenance of time lines and capacity.

At DVD Duplication.net we continue to hold a very high quality standard. We know that if we fail to deliver a quality product on time, everyone loses. So we are not the cheapest game in town. We choose to buy the higher quality blanks and equipment for an optimal product quality, and continue to invest in service infrastructure to provide on time products and accurate communication. In short, we are selling “peace of mind” over price. DVD Duplication is not a commodity as many consumers may perceive it.

If you have more questions regarding our commitment to our product quality and service, please don’t hesitate to call us. Ask for Brian at 888-889-2926!

DVD Replication and Piracy

Brian G Fisher — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 22:19:02 +0000

International DVD Piracy cost have been estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Piracy can occur on may levels. In our domestic industry in the US we see it in Replication Facilities that are not licensed by either Sony or Philips. These would be “cheats” on the system often run their businesses transparent to most customers who do business with them. However, the replicators in question would be able to decrease their pricing to customers as they avoid paying the licensing fees and royalties required by law. This gives them an unfair advantage in pricing against their competitors. It is always a good idea to verify that the replicator you are using is licensed to produce DVDs.
At DVD Duplication.net we provide DVD Replication services that are properly licensed. We adhere to a very strict code of business ethics to make sure all parties involved in the supply chain are properly and fairly compensated. This attitude of community and fairness permeates all of our business transactions.

New Flex Disc is “the” Green Alternative to Standard DVD

Brian G Fisher — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 20:05:53 +0000

Wow! That is all I can say about our new Flexible Disc.

This product can hold the same content as a standard single layer DVD, however, it uses only half the plastic and does not have the bonding material of a standard DVD.

What does this mean? It means that the carbon foot print of this product is almost half that of the regular DVD and since there is no bonding material, this disc is recyclable. Also, this disc is very thin and flexible, so you can add it to magazine advertising or mailing without having a bulky rigid DVD in your offering.

The best part of all is that this product sells for, on average , only 10% more in cost than standard DVD.

When I look at this product, all I see is benefits as far as the eye can see. For a nominal increase in cost, this product provides a significant reduction on environmental impact over standard DVD.

If you have more questions regarding this new Flexible Disc that should be replacing standard DVDs soon, please drop me an email(briangfisher@dvdduplication.net) or call at 415-929-2299.

Applying|Adding CSS Encryption to your DVD Project

Brian G Fisher — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:37:05 +0000

If your working with the wrong DVD Manufacturer, applying CSS encryption to your DVD project can be a very complicated, time consuming and confusing process. Many replicators(particularly overseas) do not offer CSS as they do not pay the royalty for this service. You can pretty much assume that they do not have a legitimate CSS process when they say things like, “if you provide us with an already encrypted disc, we can replicate that for you”, or when they do not discuss CSS royalty fees when you order. These are red flags.

If you are having trouble getting a straight answer about CSS Encryption, please see my first post which explains some of the misconceptions of CSS Encryption.

This current article is more about how to provide a CSS encrypted master for replication.

If you want a DVD manufactured with CSS Encryption, there are two ways you can accomplish this.

1. If you have a DLT Deck and can provide a DLT(Digital Linear Tape) master. When doing your DVD authoring, you will have an option to output your project to DLT. If you have a DLT deck, you will need to check the CSS encryption flag during authoring. Once you output your project to DLT we will check your DLT Master against our Eclipse tester, which will show whether or not the CSS Encryption has been added. If we show the CSS present, that is all we need to output the master.

2. If you do not have a DLT Deck – we can take your DVD-R master and convert it to a DDP master with the CSS Encryption flag set. The cost to do this is typically $300. This is an easy way to get CSS Encryption without having to invest in a DLT deck. This method is also verified by Eclipse Testing to make sure the CSS is present.

3. If you can output your own DDP master – If you authoring platform allows for creating your own DDP master, you can use this method to provide us with a DDP master with the Encryption flag set. This method is also verified by Eclipse Testing to make sure the CSS is present.

Once we get your correct master and verify the CSS content is present, we apply the scrambling algorithm during the cutting of your glass master. There is a one time CSS royalty fee that we charge, typically $150 for DVD-5 and $200 for DVD-9.

These are the three avenues to getting CSS copy protection on your DVD.

If you have more questions about CSS Encryption as it may apply to an upcoming project, please give me a call at (888) 889-2926 or email me, Brian, at briangfisher@dvdduplication.net.

Quality Focused DVD Duplication

Brian G Fisher — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:30:44 +0000

When shopping around for DVD Duplication Services you should be aware that in the industry there is always a cost vs quality tradeoff. Many companies run on the low cost model in which product quality and service suffer.

To better understand what you are buying, first it is important to distiguish DVD Duplication from DVD Replication. DVD Duplication is an industry term defined as copying one dvd on to many using DVD burners. This process is usually for lower volume runs under 500 units and is not to be confused with DVD Replication which is typically for runs over 1000 units and are stamped, not burned.

If you need less than 1000 units, then you are looking for DVD Duplication. The best way to ensure that you reiceve a quality DVD Duplication product is to ask these key questions of your duplicator.

1. ask them to explain what type of blank DVDs they use and why they have chosen them. – the quality of blank media varies widely in the industry. There is great media out there and there is some real junk too. If you duplication company cannot tell you what type of blanks they use and why, you are probably dealing with a low cost provider that buys many different types of blanks depending on the current price. These guys are typically your low cost and low quality provider.

2. ask them if they verify the master content for read errors and PI/PO errors. This is very good way to ensure that the master is of good quality and will have the necessary integrity for making good duplications.

3. ask them what type of disc printing they use. If the answer is “ink jet” you are probably dealing with a very small company that has not been able to upgrade to equipment that will provide a better quality print that is also water and scratch resistant.

These are some fundamental questions to ask to verify the quality of the disc you are getting.

You also will want to consider getting references from current clients and asking about guarantees on turn times. There are many low cost, low quality providers out there that will promise great prices at the expense of approximate lead times. It always pays to do your homework for your DVD projects.

these are just a few tips to get some insight into the product and service quality upon which they build their business.

If you have more questions about DVD Duplication, give us a quick call, we are always eager to earn new clients and provide you with a product and service that should exceed your expectations.