Often the terms media duplication and replication get us confused and while we intend something else, the wrong one takes its toll. But that doesn’t mean you shall be put behind the bars just at the mention of it, but a legitimate media duplication service may well sport you a stiff upper lip. There goes down the plan of sending your folks the video recording of your house-warming party. To escape such calamities, one must know the differences between the two.
- Duplication: If a copy of something corresponds to an original exactly, the process of making the copy is duplication. That simplified, it’s copying the content in a media with the consent of the producer of the work with the quality intact.
- Replication: If a copy of something does not have exactly the properties of an original, the process of making the copy is replication. This is the same thing as making copies in large volumes of the latest release from Metal Blade Records and making it resemble the original CD or DVD, either wholly or partially.
But it’s needless to say that the processes burn/etch information on a blank, write-enabled CD or DVD; it’s just a matter of perspective which one serves the need.
Quantity Considerations
While modern technology has gifted us our personal CD and DVD burners (a DVD writer burns both), these are not the appropriate ones when it comes to mass production. Burning multiple copies are only possible with towers that remain linked together, with each tower containing several CD or DVD trays for simultaneous creation. 50,000 or more CD or DVD are just considered the starting point in the tower process and this is what defines the profit margin. Anything lesser than that falls under the short run CD or DVD duplication.
Process considerations
If a blank CD is burned in a CD/DVD writer on a personal computer, it is as good as a professional duplication process (done with CD towers) though the stamping might be absent; duplication is done by extracting the data from a master disc and writing it into a blank media (the disc).
But a CD or DVD replication process also involves manufacturing the disc i.e. the information is not burned into an existing blank disc. Ideally, there follows a painstaking evaluation process that checks for corruption of data after which, a flawless glass master disc is created. The replication process begins from here by using the glass master disc to develop the stamper, which is then loaded into an Injection Molding polycarbonate disc manufacturing machine and an aluminum layer (few microns in thickness) is applied to the polycarbonate discs. Lacquering and printing finishes the process.
Now, this intricate a process must be run by efficient hands; can you stay assured on that part with anybody offering the service? This is why Respond has brought together all those who have made their name in the media duplication and replication industry. How reliable they are? You may ask any of the three million satisfied customers who never found their projects to be handled with so much care.
Filed under: Media Duplication
