CD and DVD Replication in Ottawa
Hopefully you’ve found this blog post at our company, Standard Media Services, for a reason. You’ve googled CD & DVD replication, and you live in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The nation’s capital. We’re going to break away from the pack here and thoroughly explain the difference between CD Replication and DVD Replication versus CD Duplication and DVD Duplication. We’re going to do it for our Ottawa crowd. Our Ottawa clients. That’s right. The Communications and Marketing Managers. We’re going to do it for the independent musicians. We’re going to do it for independent film makers. We’re going to do it for the client or customer who simply just wants to get his wedding footage transferred onto a DVD, and doesn’t want to get inundated with the technical details of what’s involved. You see…there’s still a lot of misconception about what the differences are between replication and duplication. It’s relatively simple, but it’s vitally important to know them whatever it is you might be employing one or the other for. We offer a basic rundown of the differences in our FAQ section. We’re going to elaborate on it though, here. We’d be glad to provide a quote on the replicated or duplicated project that you’re looking at getting done as well.
CD and DVD Replication:
Replicated CD and DVD is manufactured. It’s a process. It involves:
- the creation of a glass master from a client’s original master
- the creation of a nickel stamper from that glass master
- the injection molding of clear optical-grade polycarbonate substrates (base foundation clear discs) from that stamper
- the metallizing and lacquering of those substrates(base foundation clear discs) to produce compact discs and DVDs.
A video reference of the process is available here. CD Replication and DVD Replication is generally thought of as an extremely precise method of producing Audio CD and CD-Rom product. It’s also considered more universally playable and reliable when a user is facing things like first generation DVD players, older car decks, and even now, some finicky CD drives. If you were a doing a run of anything over 500 discs, we’d recommend replicating your disc. The cost associated with replicated media tends to be lower than that of duplication at higher quantities. The catch is that you need to do a minimum quantity of discs. Standard Media Services doesn’t replicate anything lower than 500 units and most don’t. Also, the replication process takes time. Nothing unreasonable, but what is generally about 5-7 days. If you’re in a hurry…it can be inconvenient in a world where you can burn a CD of your latest iTunes play list in under a minute. CD Replication and DVD Replication is the standard at retail. Music, movies, software, and console games are all replicated. So where is replication called for? Easy. We recommend replication for anything 500 pieces and up. From a cost perspective, it’s cheaper and more precise. If a client can wait the standard turn on the time it takes to replicate an order, it’s the way to go. If you’re releasing audio or a film commercially, we would also recommend replicating the order.
CD and DVD Duplication:
Duplicated CD and DVD is a different process altogether. It has increased dramatically in popularity in the last 5 years for a number of reasons. It’s quick and easy, and anyone can do it. Most notebooks and PCs have come equipped with a duplicating optical media drive for the last while. I have a dual layered DVD-RW on the notebook I am writing this post on. The commercial application of duplicated media services has enabled clients to be able to get discs quickly. It’s ideal for short run orders. We often deal with clients who are looking for 50 pieces, or 200 pieces…a lot of quantities below the replicated mark of 500 that acts as a minimum, and they need them quickly. Duplicated CD-R and DVD-R are what we would do situations like that. We don’t use a single optical drive. Mass duplication involves multiple duplicating drives that work in harmony collectively. The duplication process is the process by which a blank CD-R or DVD-R is placed into a duplicating disc drive, and an image of the data or audio master is literally burned or etched onto the underlying surface of the disc. It’s an on the fly method, and is ideal for quick and short run projects. The duplication process however is less precise than the replication process. There are variables that you get in exchange for the convenience of immediately having something. Duplicated CD and DVD has a failure factor. The variables that can contribute to the factor being higher or lower include the speed you’re burning your media at, your software, and even the media itself. Cheaper brands of CD-R and DVD-R media can have higher failure rates. We use Taiyo Yuden, Verbatim, and Ridata blank media. We also do a thorough inspection and grading check of the masters we receive before the duplication process and after. If you’re dealing with a good duplicator, or if you are a good duplicator, you’ll do a combination of slow burning, using good media, and checks and balance along the way and post order completion. Duplication is not as reliable as replication, and it’s more expensive, BUT…you can get a batch of CDs in a fraction of the time. We can duplicate upwards of 1000 CD-Rs or DVD-Rs in 48 hours, decorated and packaged. Duplicated media also degrades quicker than replicated media. With that said, with a well duplicated order of discs, you’ll notice no difference besides the fact that you had the discs the next day and that they were a little more expensive. Duplication is ideal in many more cases than most people realize. Short run, quick run, on the fly type orders. Even if you 5000 CDs or DVDs, we’d recommend a duplicated order if it was something you were looking for in just a few days.
That’s it. We’re going to reference this blog post when the question comes up. Please leave a comment and let us know if you found this helpful.