CD Manufacturing Our Sponsors: CD Replication Services Digital Music Download Cards 40% off CD Replication CD Manufacturing Great Quality. Fast Service. www.microforum.ca A new way to sell Music! Physical card with Your Music! www.isongcard.com Discounts of 40% on CD Replication! Retail Ready CD Manufacturing www.bestchoicemedia.com The CD Manufacturing Process This site details how an Audio CD is Mastered, Pressed and Printed. The site contains valuable tips and information about CD Manufacturing and CD Replication. We recommend that you familiarize yourself with the CD Manufacturing process before purchasing any CD duplication services. A professionally mastered and replicated CD is not the same as a disc you burn in your home computer! There are differences... Read on to learn more and educate yourself before spending your hard-earned money! By learning how a professional compact disc is produced, you can be sure to ask all the right questions when shopping for a CD duplication company or CD duplication services. Contents: What is CD Manufacturing? What is the difference between a Manufactured CD and a CD-R? What is a Glass Master, or Glass Mastering? Is it better to dupe or to manufacture an Audio Compact Disc? What is the best way to prepare my Master CD for Manufacturing? What are the different printing methods for an Audio CD? Who owns the patents for CD Manufacturing? Are there license fees for CD Manufacturing? Disclaimer What is CD Manufacturing?        CD Manufacturing refers to a production process where Compact discs are molded from polycarbonate, metalized, and lacquered before being printed by either silk screening, digital, or offset CD printing technologies. This is NOT the same as burning a disc on a Computer that is equipped with a CD Writer. In fact, the manufactured Compact Disc differs greatly from a Recordable CD (CD-R) – refer to the next section "What is the Difference Between a manufactured CD and a CD-R" for more details. Back to top What is the Difference between a Manufactured CD and CD-R?        Although the discs may look similar, there is a big difference between a duplicated Recordable CD-R (sometimes referred to as a "burned" or "duped" disc), and a "Pressed" (also called "Glass Mastered", "molded" or "manufactured" or "replicated") compact disc (CD). A manufactured compact disc (CD) is manufactured with microscopic bumps (ON) and valleys (OFF) to represent the two digital letters of the digital alphabet. A Glass master (see next section for more info on Glass Masters) is used to produce a piece of nickel that acts as the stamper for the CD. Each manufactured CD would have a unique custom nickel stamper. The stamper has all of the hills and valleys of the Master CD on it, and is used to transfer the information to the finished disc in a molding process that molds plastic pellets (polycarbonate) to the finished product. To watch a video of the CD/DVD/Bluray molding process, click here.        Although these discs are the same size and similar color and shape as a CD-R Recordable disc, the underlying technology and manufacturing process differs tremendously. For a recordable CD-R disc, the digital letters ON (1) and OFF (0) are represented by holes that are shot through a layer of DYE on the CDR by a recording laser. The laser shoots this hole to represent an OFF (0) letter and leaves the DYE intact to represent an ON letter (1). This is why this process is referred to as "burning" a disc... i.e. the disc is actually being burned with holes by a laser in the photo-sensitive dye layer of the disc!        To recap: A "pressed" disc with music on it would be manufactured with the data imprinted right on the copies. A Recordable CD, DVD or Bluray disc is actually manufactured with a DYE that can be written to with a laser device. Recordable CD , DVD and Blu-ray Drives have the added ability to burn holes in the DYE of a recordable disc, thereby allowing small scale production of CDs and DVDs. Back to top What is a Glass Master, or Glass Mastering?        The CD Manufacturing and Replication process starts off with a metal injection stamper that is made specifically for each unique CD Master. This piece of metal is actually made from nickel and is created using a process called Glass Mastering. This is why the terms stamping, mastering and/or glass mastering are used to refer to professionally replicated CDs.        Refer to the image below to see what a metal stamper looks like. This stamper is used to press or stamp CDs. Each CD title would have a unique stamper that is made through a glass mastering process. Back to top Is it better to dupe or to manufacture an Audio Compact Disc?        The question of duping versus professionally manufacturing a Music CD is actually not a complicated one. Simply put, if you anticipate you will sell more than 500 audio discs during your lifetime, it is cut and dry…. Get your music discs professional pressed! The cost will often be lowerthan burning CDs at this quantity. If you don't think you can sell (or even giveaway) 500 discs, you may consider getting 50 or 100 burned discs made up. But remember…the advantages of a pressed disc are many… See below for five great reasons to Press your CD and not use CD-Rs: IMPORTANT! Five reasons why you should Manufacture your CD, not burn it:  A professional can tell the difference at a single glance  The discs can be tracked by radio stations (using the ISRC coding system)  The discs will have important identifying codes inscribed in the mirror band, which help identify counterfeits!  The cost is actually lower (when running a minimum 500 or more discs)  The quality of the finished product is better.  And most importantly…Manufactured discs have a longer shelf life than CD-Rs! Conclusion: Since it may cost you less, and offers the advantages listed above… why not have your CD manufactured in the same process as all of the famous big-named artists? Back to top What is the best way to prepare my Master CD for Manufacturing?        Blank Media Selection:        Selecting good quality media is the first step to producing a successful pre-master for glass mastering. Use a brand-name product for your master, such as Verbatim, Sony, Maxell, Taiyo Yuden or Mitsui. Using inferior quality CD-R media may result in unreadable sectors on the premaster (the technical term for this type of error is a CU error). Poor media ,may also increase the number of C1 and C2 errors in your pre-master. C1 and C2 errors, in limited numbers, may not adversely affect your master, as they are generally correctable if there aren't too many of them. However, a CU error is not correctable and almost always requires the pre-master to be resent for Glass Mastering.        Write/Burn Speed:        The speed at which you burn your CD media can also affect the number and frequency, of C1, C2, and CU errors on your pre-master. It is recommended that you burn your CD premaster at the lowest speed setting available (i.e. 1x or 2x) rather than the maximum rating listed. There are also a variety of CD Analysis Software Packages that will diagnose the quality of the pre-master - look for a package that will give you information about C1, C2 and CU errors. IMPORTANT: If you make multiple copies/burns of your master CD, successfully analyzing the first copy/burn does not mean that the subsequent copies are error free! Please write the disc as Track at Once, or Disc at Once and close the session/disc in the options menu of your burning software program! It is highly recommended that you test the actual copy that you are sending for Replication.        Note:If you are consistently getting a large number of C2 and CU errors in your pre-mastering, and you tried different brand types of blank CD media with no change in the results, you may have a burner that is not operating at peak efficiency (i.e. it maybe a dust issue, a mechanical problem, or an age issue with the burning device).        Handling Care:        Once the tray on your Burner opens and presents the newly minted pre-master, care should be taken to prevent dust, fingerprints or scratches from degrading its surface. Do not touch the recorded side of the media with your finger tips and always handle the media by the edges.        Identification/Labeling:        You may want to consider hand-writing your information in the clear plastic area near the hub of the CD or use discs with a printable top surface in conjunction with a thermal or inkjet CD printer. We do not recommend applying any kind of label to the surface of your pre-master. However, if you are extremely careful and accurate (use a label applicator) and use the right kind of label, then it can be acceptable. The wrong kind of label can damage a disc and asymmetric labels may throw the disc out of balance, causing read errors. Never apply a CD label on top of an existing CD label! You may want to consider instead of a label, writing directly on the surface of the disc, but only if you use a felt tipped pen that is approved for this use. Never use a solvent-based pen on a disc as it can eat through the lacquer and damage data on your CD pre-master.        Packaging/Shipping:        The more secure method is to package your Master in a hard shell container, such as a jewel case. Additionally, a bubble envelope or bubble-pack padding is a good way to protect your disc in transit. Although paper sleeves do afford some protection against dust, fingerprints and scratches, they are not recommended for transportation, unless properly wrapped.        Cleaning or repairing a dirty CD-R or DVD-R:        If the CDR is unique and unreadable and can't be replaced, then use a soft lint-free cloth and soapy water (distilled is best). The cloth must be free of any particles or hard fibres that could scratch the disk. The cleaning agent must be a soap, such as Ivory Liquid and not detergents or solvents such as alcohol. Gently wipe in a straight line from the hub to the outside with a wet cloth (error correction methods are better at correcting scratches and marks that go from the center out) and avoid any unnecessary pressure on the disc surface. Scratched discs cannot be repaired by the use of pastes (toothpaste) and waxes (car polish). The use of these solutions can actually increase read error rates even though the visual appearance of the surface may have improved. possible, replace the damaged CD-R with a newly created CD-R to send to your CD manufacturing company. Back to top What are the different printing methods for an Audio CD?        Once the compact disc is manufactured, the CD still needs to be printed. There are three main printing methods used in the mass manufacturing of CDs by the CD manufacturing industry. They are:        -  CD silk screening        -  CD digital printing        -  CD offset printing        CD Silkscreening        The CD silk screen process is the oldest printing method for getting ink onto a CD. The silkscreen method has been around since the inception of the CD. Silk Screening is a process by which a mesh screen is exposed with a film to transfer an image onto the screen. The screen is then used to transfer UV inks to the surface of the disk and a UV curing system is used to dry the inks during printing. Silk screening is still the best way to get a spot color(s) onto the disk face. Solid colors come out particularly vibrant with silkscreening and recent advances in silk screen technology have also made improvements to full color printing on the CD face. Silk screening also makes it possible to match colors using the Pantone Matching System, so you can get very close to the spot color tone you desire from a PMS swatch book. The drawback to silk screening is that it requires film charges, which makes it more expensive than other printing technologies for CD replication runs of 1000 CDs or less. If you are manufacturing more than 1500 CDs, silk screening starts to become more cost efficient. Silk screening is the most cost effective printing method for larger CD productions of 5000 CDs or more.        CD Digital Printing        Digital printing technologies for CDs are relatively new technologies. For mass production, these systems use ultra-violet (UV) drying inks which are cured by a UV light after being printed by a series of digital print heads. These CD printing systems do a remarkable job on photo-quality artwork or photo-quality images printed on CDs. However, they do not handle solid colors well (silk screening is still the king when it comes to solid color printing of a CD label). The systems are typically slower than silk screen machines, but there is a far shorter setup time involved. As a result, for orders that are under 500 CDs and up to 1000 CDs, digital printing is the most cost-efficient printing method. Digital printing is not well suited for orders over 1000 CDs. When designing your artwork, avoid solid color backgrounds and make your artwork as colorful as possible! A picture or full color vibrant photograph works best for the digital method of printing… and the results can be terrific!        CD offset printing        Offset printing for CDs, like digital printing, is also used to create photo-realistic CD labels. CD offset printing is economical and the results are stunning. The drawback with this technology is the large amount of wasted discs… setup of a CD face can waste between 300 CD and 500 CDs before the press is setup (this is called "run-up"). The run-up makes it costly to print less than 1000 CDs. However, like silk screening, the larger the order, the less impact the setup has on production unit costs. Therefore, offset printing is cost effective for larger runs of 2500 CDs, 5000 CD, 10,000 CDs or more.        And the winner is… well, it depends on your artwork and the quantity of CDs being manufactured. All three technologies have their advantages and disadvantages. But, in general, CD silk screening is best for spot color jobs or jobs where a Pantone color is required. Digital printing is best for 1000 CDs or less that have full-color photo-quality labels. And offset printing is best for larger CD manufacturing runs where a full color photo-quality CD label is required. Back to top Who owns the patents for CD Manufacturing?        The optical CD media format was invented by and patented by Philips and Sony. Philips manages the joint CD Disc patent licenses worldwide. Visit www.philips.com for more information. Back to top Are there license fees for CD Manufacturing?        The joint CD disc patent license is managed worldwide by Philips www.philips.com . Depending on which country the CDs are manufactured or shipped to, there may or may not be a license fee applied to each manufactured compact disc. In some countries, like Canada and the United States of America (USA), the patent has reached its expiry. As a result Canadian and American manufacturers of CDs need not pay a patent license fee for manufactured compact discs, but they are still obliged to report manufacturing numbers to Philips. However, if the manufactured CD products are being shipped to a country where there is a patent still in effect, licensing fees may be due upon the product entering that country. For additional information, contact Philips at: http://www.support.philips.com/support/catalog_selector.jsp?COOKIE=off. Back to top Disclaimer You should not rely solely on this material for making business decisions. Always consult with your legal advisor. Material from other websites is provided for informational purposes only. The other websites all have their own disclaimers. Links to commercial sites are provided for your convenience only. We have tried to ensure that all of the material presented on this page is accurate and factual at the time of writing. Back to top Copyright ® 2010 cdmanufacturinginfo.com. All Rights Reserved.