Replicated CDs are mass-produced using an injection moulding process. This is the highest quality and lowest priced method of manufacturing discs. Duplicated CDs are typically burned or ‘written to’ using a computer and this makes perfect sense for shorter runs of discs. When deciding if you need to burn CD-Rs or Replicate CDs, consider the amount of discs you going to need. If you would like less than 250 discs, then burning may be the best option, particularly if you do not require packaging. If you require discs in quantities of 250 or more, Replicated (molded) discs are the way to go. Please contact your sales person for more information.

If there is no label art involved, we will ‘attempt’ to complete your job with discs if you provide them. However, experience has shown that discs of unknown origin (to us) are often lower quality – some won’t burn at all. If thermal print or inkjet labels are required, we will only use our own discs to complete you job.

Silkscreen printing is a process in which the artwork for your project is exposed onto a fine screen mesh. Ink is forced through this screen (or film) and onto the disc surface. Each colour of ink requires it’s own film.

Offset printing is a process in which your CMYK label art is transferred onto 4 different plates that will each add one colour of ink to the surface of the disc, namely, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black, resulting in a full colour finished product. This method is also known as four color process and results in a high resolution image of picture quality at 175 lines per inch (lpi).

Unlike inkjet printers which spray liquid ink, thermal transfer printers transfer solid pigment from a coated ribbon onto the surface of a disc through a combination of heat and pressure. We use thermal printing for one colour black discs only. thermal transfer printing is reasonably durable, However some disc surfaces give better results than others and offer more protection from potential damage during the printing process. Consequently, discs are available which feature special coatings optimized for thermal transfer printing. Line art translates well on a thermal printer. Grayscale images and gradients do not.

Inkjet printers function by ejecting liquid ink from a print head onto the surface of a specially coated “inkjet-printable” disc. These special discs have an extra coating, called an Ink Absorption Layer (IAL), which receives the ink from the printer and allows it to stay in place long enough to dissipate its solvents and properly dry. Inkjet printers produce high-resolution full color images but there is a downside in that resulting labels can be smudged by high humidity or damp fingers. Inkjet printed discs should not be stored or shipped in form-fitting soft plastic envelopes as the chemicals used to keep the package materials supple can soften the inks causing the label to stick to the sleeve and potentially delaminate the disc when removed. Using jewelcases or other containers that do not come into direct contact with the printed surface is best.

White flood refers to a white layer of ink which is deposited over the entire print surface of the disc. It provides a foundation for all other colors being used in the disc design. Depending on the effect you are trying to achieve, the disc label can be printed directly on the disc without a white flood coat. sometimes the white coat can have “knock-outs” to allow the silver disc to show through. Please discuss your needs with a graphic designer are contact your sales rep to learn more.

PMS refers to the Pantone Matching System, an international method of standardizing ink. What is red? that’s a tough one. But red PMS 485 is an exact mix that will be consistent from Vancouver to London. As long as you’re printing on paper. Pantone produces entire books of colour swatches that show variations in colour and their corresponding PMS number. There are different books for CMYK printing, as well as for SPOT colour.

SPOT colour refers to any SOLID Pantone colour of ink. A spot colour is not produced by mixing CMYK inks in the printing process. You can think of it as a separate can a paint for every shade. A graphic artist needs to know HOW your insert or disc will be printed before they can properly assign colour to your artwork.

CMYK or “process” printing creates a full colour image on either paper or a disc. Most of the printed material you see (such as color magazines and brochures) is printed on a four colour offset printing press. Each of the 4 letters stand for one specific ‘colour of ink’. C=cyan(blue), M=magenta (pinkish red), Y= yellow, and K=black(key). By combining different percentages of each of these four colours, any full colour image can be achieved.

4/4 – inserts are full colour on both sides of the page
4/1 – inserts are full colour on one side. w/ black only on the back.
4/0 – inserts are full colour on one side and blank on the second side.
4/1 stapled booklet has a full colour cover. All inside pages are black.

Printing presses will always try to match the PDF proofs that you approved during the pre-press stage. Please note that while PDF proofing is not THE most accurate proofing mechanism in the print industry, (hard copy proofing can result in truer colour), it is the overwhelming favourite in our industry, because it saves you money and results in your project being retail ready a few days sooner. Please ask us about hard-copy proofing, if you have concerns about your design, or need to match to other printed pieces.

Yes, but you’ll need a special quote for this.

The short answer is yes, but the cost effective answer is likely no. The CD industry enjoys the lowest prices for CMYK printing than almost any other market segment. This is due to the ‘gang-run’ system whereby several projects are printed side by side on large sheets, all approved via PDF proofs. You may be offered a deal by a friend or relative, but if they aren’t aware of the packaging restrictions it could get messy. If your inserts are out by even 0.2mm when they are trimmed, your project can’t be packaged automatically and hand assembly will be required. This costs money and takes extra time.

A traycard is the ‘other’ piece of printing that fits into a standard jewel box. The back of your CD is often where you’d place a track listing, and contact information. The spines (which show when your CD is on edge) are attached to the traycard. These can be printed on one side only, or on both sides when a clear tray is used to hold your disc. Traycards are not easy to ‘fake’. The printing is easy, but proper trimming and scoring needs to be precise, and a poor job usually leads to manual packaing and additional charges.

Supported Applications:
. Adobe Illustrator
. Adobe InDesign
. Adobe Photoshop: Unflattened layers saved in TIF or PSD formats
(preferred). Single layer image formats EPS or JPG are uneditable or
expensive to alter.
. Quark Xpress, up to version 7

We will accept files from these Applications:
. Corel Draw, up to version 11: export files as EPS and export text as
curves or as a PDF file.
. Microsoft Word (but you will have to be sure your photos are the correct
resolution.

We do not support the following Applications:
. Adobe PageMaker
. Microsoft Publisher
. Easy CD creator
. Nero
. Discus
. Sure Thing
However, many of these applications allow you to save or export your
documents a PDF.

Acceptable image file types: TIFF (.tif), EPS (.eps) – with 8-bit TIFF preview and text saved as outlines, PDF. We discourage the use of the following formats for image files: GIF (.gif) – great for the web, but not recommended for print output and JPEG (.jpg) – ditto. Now this doesn’t mean that amazing cover shot you took with your digital camera can’t be used. Here’s the trick: save the original image as a TIFF. that way, whenever you are working in your image software, the quality can be maintained. And don’t forget to set your camera to the highest possible resolution BEFORE you take the picture! this is album art – who care’s if it’s too big for your mom’s hotmail account. you can always
downsize later. But keep that TIFF secure.

Trapping refers to the overlap of pantone spot colours on your label art, and avoids the problems that result should MISREGISTRATION occur in the silk-screening process. Unless you’re experienced at trapping your artwork, it’s probably best to leave the trapping to us. Trapping is a service we provide for free.

Since your color document is separated into FOUR-color plates (CMYK) when it is “ripped” by the Raster Image Processor (get it – “RIP”ed) the printer needs to precisely align these plates on the press to successfully print the job. You’ve likey seen newspaper cartoons with the colors spilling out of the lines – this is an example of registration gone bad or a sloppy cartoonist, or both. By creating REGISTRATION MARKS, the printer is able to align the colors precisely on top of each other and create a perfect colour blend.

Line Art is any image that consists of distinct straight and curved lines placed against a (usually plain) background, without using gradations in (darkness) to represent two-dimensional or three-dimensional objects. Line art can use lines of different colors, although line art is usually monochromatic. Adobe Illustrator, is one of the most common vector art, or line art design programs on the market.

An Image usually exists in one of two states. It will either be a raster image, that is, an image made up of a finite number of tiny pixels that have been assigned a colour value, or it will be what is known as vector art. Vector graphics are displayed on the screen as your computer interprets geometric information such as radius, x-y coordinates etc. Photographs are examples of Rastor images, while corporate logos are typically designed as vector art.

A circle, for instance can be stored as a raster image (TIFF, JPEG) and will contain a certain number of dots that show on your screen. If you increase the size of the image, the dots become easier to see and the circle gets a serious case of the “jaggies”. In contrast, a circle created as vector art in a program such as Adobe Illustrator has an actual radius (inches or mm) and instructions built into the graphic that help draw the shape, correctly. And in any colour you choose. If you zoom in (way in) on a vector image, the edges will remain sharp. Try creating a circle – first in Photoshop, and then Illustrator and you’ll see the difference right away.

It’s important to know the difference between vector and rastor art when deciding how to incorporate the various images, logos and text elements into your design. Refer to your software manuals for more detailed information.

Graphics created for the web should not be used for print work, unless your goal is to make your artwork look really bad on purpose. For commercial printing, images should be scanned at 300 dpi and remain uncompressed, in CMYK color. A CD cover, for example, might be 10 MB in size or larger. For the Web, you want your images as small as possible for quick downloading: 72 dpi, compressed, in RGB color. Often, these files are under 100k. If you try to incorporate one of these tiny Web images in your printed work, the images will be suffer a serious case of “jaggies”, and the color quality will be poor. If you’re taking your own photographs, set your camera to it’s highest resolution. (camera phones are perfect – for conversing, but less than stellar as a professional graphics tool).

This refers to the area directly outside the cut marks of your printed cd cover. Please include an extra 3mm (.125″) of colour around the outside edge, so that if the inserts are cut less than perfectly (never, ever happens!) you won’t see an unsightly white sliver along the edge.

In order for us to use your artwork for insert printing, your design files must be complete and formatted correctly to allow for CMYK colour separations. Not all page layout programs are capable of this (see preferred file formats). Make sure that any linked images and fonts are included with your files. We’re happy to update text or nudge a graphic element to keep your artwork safely with the templates, but our pre-press charges do not include the time it takes to re-build your work from incomplete or substandard files.

It is also imperative that you proofread your content – again and again. And again. Any corrections that need to be made after we process your files may result in additional charges, and more importantly a delay in the date of completion. We do check your supplied files for technical errors to make sure they are ready for print production and if there are any significant problems, we will contact you to make the necessary changes. Our objective is to help you get the best possible final product and sometimes that means questioning the quality of the files we receive.

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If you are only selling off the stage you do not need a barcode. If you are selling retail or etail you’ll need one. We can provide you with a unique barcode that can be added to your artwork or applied as a sticker after production for an extra charge.

Yup. This is the only way for us to track your disc and print as they move in different channels throuhg the manufacturing process. You can make this number up, but often or use the first letters of the words in their project title or company name along wth the last few digits of the barcode.

ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) is a worldwide tracking system for sound recordings and music video. Each ISRC is a unique and permanent identifier for a specific recording which can be permanently encoded into a product as its digital fingerprint. Encoded ISRC provide the means to automatically identify a specific recording (not the song) for royalty payments. ISRC codes must be embedded in the digital master BEFORE any audio CD’s are pressed. ISRC codes are used as identification tools only, and are not required.

Having ISRC codes attached to each track on your disc DOES NOT mean that your song titles will appear on Windows Media Player or your car’s CD player. You’ll need to connect with www.allmusic.com (or a similar site) to have your songs added to the Windows Database. You’ll also need to ask your mastering engineer to include “track list” information during the authoring process if you want your track details to appear on your car CD player.

CD text is actually an update to REDBOOK audio CD standards. In the old days, following vinyl and cassettes, digital storage of music was groundbreaking but there were no computers in the loop. Today, everything has changed. Many CD burners will allow you to add CD text to your CDR master. However some problems are associated with this. There are two possible locations on the disc where these codes could reside and not all music players can read that information. Another way to add text is to log onto www.gracenote.com (formerly cddb) or use the ADVANCED MENU on iTunes (submit track names) or Winamp. Gracenote will compute the number of tracks and the exact length of each song and create a distinct ‘fingerprint’ from this information. In the future, when people play your music on a media player, that player goes online automatically and brings the information to your desktop: track titles, artist names and the album name.

20mm compact disc | 80 min–00 sec | red book standard
80mm compact disc | 20 min – 00 sec | red book standard
business card cd | 4 minutes – 38 sec | red book standard

*the RED BOOK (which contains the standards for CD-audio manufacturing, both discs and players) specifies that the maximum program length should be 74 minutes of music. However, as 80 minute CDr’s have become the norm in recent years, they have pushed the pre-recorded discs to same limit. In order to warranty 100% compatibility between a pressed disc and a music CD player, we recommend that the RED BOOK standard of 74 minutes be maintained. We cannot be held responsible for program lengths in excess of 74 minutes.

Any content you add to a music CD beyond the actual music tracks makes it an enhanced CD. Video footage, photos, lyrics, or even a weblink can be added without increasing the unit cost of yours disc. each disc holds 650 MB worth of data, why not use that extra space to promote yourself.

Red Book audio the standard for audio cd‘s (Compact Disc Digital Audio system, or CDDA). It is named after one of a set of books that contain the technical specifications for all CD and CDrom formatted discs.The first edition of the Red Book was released in June, 1980 by Philips and Sony. The Red Book specifies the physical parameters and properties of the CD, the optical “stylus” parameters, deviations and error rate, and subcode channels and graphics. It also specifies the form of digital audio encoding (2-channel,16-bit sampled at 44100 Bit rate = 44100 samples/s ? 16 bit/sample ? 2 channels = 1411.2 kbit/s (more than 10 MB per minute) Blah, blah, blah…

The surface of a CD changes toward the center. At 38mm the aluminum, or silver transitions to a mirror and then to clear plastic at 36mm. It’s important to consider how your label design will be affected by this change. Often a solid coat of white ink applied first will soften, or wipe out any colour difference.

Allow 3 to 4 weeks for completion of pressed discs. We can often complete short runs (burned discs) in 3 to 5 days depending on the season, and whether or not print is required. If your artwork is not press ready there may be additional delays. Click here to learn more.

This is the time period between the day your project has been approved (artwork, replication rights and master) and the time it’s assembled and ready to face the world. Seven to ten days is the norm. There are times when we can move your job along quicker, but this will need to be approved by the plant and extra charges will apply. Talk to us early in your planning process to avoid stress at the other end.

For replicated (pressed) discs the minimum order quantity is 250 units. Print materials must be ordered in multiples of 1000 unless you’re doing a short run, in which case we can print smaller quantities of jewelbox packaging or certain varieties of cardboard sleeves. Contact us to learn more.

Pre-press set up or pre-flight as it’s sometimes called involves checking your artwork files to ensure that they will print properly. We usually spend about one hour prepping your job. If we discover deficiencies, you’ll be contacted before we do anything. You can either have your designer make the appropriate changes, or we will take care of that for an extra charge.

Not to be too sceptical, but you get what you pay for, and in this case, you may not be paying the royalties to the inventors of all this great technology. Phillips, Sony and several other companies own the patent rights to every CD player and disc on the planet, and they get a few pennies every time a cd or dvd is pressed. If you’re being offered ‘too good to be true’ pricing – beware. Your manufacturer may be shut down – with your assets locked inside.

We require a standard REDBOOK audio master for audio projects. Please ensure that you test your master in a variety of players to ensure it is performing the way you want it to. Make sure there are proper spaces between tracks and that you have included your ISRC codes and CD Text if you are wanting this included.  We do accept audio masters via FTP / or a link in the form of a zipped DDP file.

Any content on your disc that isn’t owned by you, the artist, must be cleared by the copyright owner, and that documentation must be in our hands, before the pressing can be scheduled. Replication rights ensures that songwriters and content developers get their fair share. there are several organizations that manage content rights. Click here to learn more.

The CD plants that we partner with in pressing your discs will not proceed until all licensing and replication rights paperwork has been completed. Your signature doesn’t guarantee that your project can be run, or that you’ll simply take responsibility for any licensing concerns. This form declares that all matters of copyright have been properly attended to.

You can either send your artwork files along with your CDR master (on a separate disc) or FTP the files directly to our server. We need you to contact us before we pass along any FTP access info.

The CD pressing process is a very involved process and it takes several hours in glass mastering and production time before your disc is ready to press and silkscreen. This is not the stage in your product development where you want to ‘discover’ errors or problems. The RED BOOK audio standard, which all CD technology companies follow, ensures that your disc will play properly.

No. The glass master is a tool used at the plant to produce a Stamper for your disc. The glass master will be wiped clean and re-used on another project, once your project has cleared quality control. NOTE: the CD-R master that you bring in for duplication is not a glass master, and should never be the only copy you have of your work.

On replication orders (pressed discs) we keep a reference copy on site and the plant will keep the stampers for future use. But in the event of a failure during a re-order it is comforting to all of us to know that YOU ALSO HAVE A COPY OF YOUR MASTER stored safely.

We can usually complete a re-order in 5 – 7 days, plus shipping. But If you want to make any changes to the artwork, it’s like starting a project from scratch. short – runs can usually be turned around in 2 or 3 days.

We can usually handle RUSH scenarios, but we need to clear it with the plant, before we promise you a faster turn time. At certain times of the year turn times increase. Please talk to you sales rep, and plan ahead.

DVD offers certain functionality such as skipping to various places on the disc via elaborate menus, selecting the desired soundtrack or subtitles, playing back the director’s cut or the edited version, or looking at out takes and trailers for the movie. In the authoring process, all the various audio and video elements, still pictures, menus and subtitles must be assembled along with navigation commands to create the finished disc image that ends up on the actual DVD itself. Depending on the complexity of the title, this process can take from hours to days, even weeks to complete and test.

Yes but as all artwork is now digitally created and archived, having back- ups is the only way to avoid heartache. We will have a copy in our pre-press department, and our printers wil have final files as well. However, Hard drives do crash and back-ups become corrupt, so PLEASE keep your files in a safe place. We can’t be held responsible for artwork files that fail to operate after one year.

Motion picture studios want to control the home release of movies in different countries because theater releases aren’t simultaneous (a movie may come out on video in the U.S. when it’s just hitting screens in Europe). Also, studios sell distribution rights to different foreign distributors and would like to guarantee an exclusive market. Therefore they have required that the DVD standard include codes that can be used to prevent playback of certain discs in certain geographical regions. Each player is given a code for the region in which it’s sold. The player will refuse to play discs that are not allowed in that region. This means that discs bought in one country may not play on players bought in another country. Regional codes are entirely optional for the maker of a disc. Discs without codes will play on any player in any country. It’s not an encryption system, it’s just one byte of information on the disc that the player checks. Some studios originally announced that only their new releases will have regional codes, but so far almost all releases play in only one region. Region codes are a permanent part of the disc, they won’t “unlock” after a period of time. There are 8 regions (also called “locales”). Players and discs are identified by the region number superimposed on a world globe. If a disc plays in more than one region it will have more than one number on the globe.

1: Canada, U.S., U.S. Territories
2: Japan, Europe, South Africa, Middle East (including Egypt)
3: Southeast Asia, East Asia (including Hong Kong)
4: Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, Caribbean
5: Former Soviet Union, Indian Subcontinent, Africa (also North Korea, Mongolia)
6: China
7: Reserved
8: Special international venues (airplanes, cruise ships, etc.)

Some players can be modified to play discs regardless of their regional codes. This usually voids the warranty. Some discs, such as those from Buena Vista/Touchstone/Miramax, MGM/Universal, and Polygram contain program code that checks for the proper region. These “smart discs” won’t play on code-free players that have their region set to 0, but they can be played on code-switchable players that allow you to change the region using the remote control. They may also not work on “auto-switching” players that recognize and match the disc region. Regional codes also apply to DVD-ROM systems, but are allowed for use only with DVD-Video discs, not DVD-ROM discs containing computer software. Computer playback systems check for regional codes before playing movies from a DVD-Video. Newer “RPC2” DVD-ROM drives let you change the region code several times. Once a drive has reached the limit (usually 5 changes) it can’t be changed again unless the vendor or manufacturer resets it. Information and software for circumventing DVD-ROM region restrictions are available from various Internet sites. Regional codes do not apply to DVD-Audio.