We don’t need you to send us a hard copy disc master for your duplication order.
You can upload your content to us via our WeTransfer or via Dropbox or Google Drive.
We will then create a master here to work from .
You can of course send us a master in the post if you still wish to, but make sure you play it before you send it to us to check it plays as it should.
If you have a quick question to ask us about CD/DVD duplication its nice and easy to speak to us on our Live Chat, which is available all day in our office hours.
And as we have been asked so many times …we are not robots …we are real people who are very happy to explain or help you with any aspect of ordering.
If you thought that the end of the DVD is nigh, you might want to think again. Like anything else in life it’s not straight forward anymore, but little nuggets exist under rocks if you seek them out. The question we are often asked is that “people don’t have DVD players anymore” so how can our customer play them?
DVD PLAYERS
The above is generally true but, older people still have DVD players and use them, a lot, so don’t ignore this market.
CD/DVD DRIVES ON PCs & MACS
Lots of people still have drives on their main systems so don’t forget they can play DVDs.
GAMERS
X Boxes and PS 3s 4s 5s all play DVDs!
Most households have a gamer – young or old – so don’t miss this and remind your customers!
SELLING DIGITALLY
We enable you to sell you DVD video content online. Instead of buying a DVD, your customer buys a file to download and play.
This is not streaming. This is you selling them the digital file for viewing on any player that supports MP4s so PCs/Macs/Tablets/TVs with that functionality etc see www.thedigitalpublishingcenter.com It’s a self service website and relies on you setting everything up, but once you have done it you are away.
BLURAY
BluRay works beautifully on Gamers Xboxes and PS 3/4/5 too so make sure you don’t miss this.
The key is to make your customers aware of the above.
It really couldnt be easier to send us your art and content .
We have a dedicated WeTransfer site that allows you to easily send everything to us …at the touch of a few buttons!
We will send you this link when you order and all you do is add your email address, add your order nuber and any notes you wish to say to us then press + to upload. Drop your files and send .
The screen will look like this:
https://uploadcentre.wetransfer.com/?to=upload@duplicationcentre.co.uk&msg=DC%20Order%20number%20
You will be notified when we download them.
As your files are labelled with your order number we can allocate them straight away to your client art file here for checking .
As always if you have any queries please dont hesitiate to call ( 01702 530354 )or email (support@duplicationcentre.co.uk) and we can help with anything you need to ask us about the process.
Beware, we are now moving into the area of artwork and the word image no longer relates to a disc image! When talking about artwork, and image is simply a picture, a graphic or photograph
PDF stands for “portable document format.” Adobe Systems designed this format, which has become the standard for exchanging electronic documents. Its a very complex and powerful format used extensively in artwork design and printing, perfect for supplying your artwork supporting the other artwork formats below, as well as special print formats, colours and vector graphics.
These image formats are ideal for photos and similar images containing many colours offering good quality and acceptable sizes are possible. The quality / file size of a jpeg can be altered through the use of compression.
The three formats all vary slightly in the way they apply compression to the images, each with its own advantages. For printing its best to keep the compression at a minimum so the files are larger and better quality.
This format is only used by the graphics programs Photoshop. The files are generally large and contain lots of additional information and layers which are not needed for print. The complexity of the files make them perfect for editing and designing, BUT not ideal for printing. You should save your artwork to PDF or JPEG when ready to submit for printing.
To learn more about artwork formats this article is a good place to start, offering beginner guides to the various types: Further information on artwork formats.
Unlike the disc image formats above, these are just individual audio files used by computers. They require ‘Authoring’ to a disc. Authoring a CD means taking the audio (in any of the formats) and writing it into a format and structure a simple CD player can understand and play
These are high quality audio files, very similar to standard CD-Audio. This is a very common format used in recording studios .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAV
AIFF is practically identical to WAV, but this format was developed by Apple in the late 80’s. Another very common format in recording studios.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Interchange_File_Format
This is a digital music format created for sending audio over the internet. The great attraction of the MP3 format is its ability to compress files, allowing them to use much less space. Technically lower quality than the above audio formats, but not really in any noticeable way
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3
The Free Lossless Audio Codec. This is a newer format which is able to compress audio to take up space just like an MP3, but does so in a ‘lossless’ way. This means the audio quality should not be degraded in any way, but the file size will be noticeably smaller. A useful format that has only seen uptake in technical and audiophile community.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLAC
This section may appear a bit short, but I had to draw the line somewhere. There are a very large number of video formats that have existed over the years, far too many to discuss here. In practice there are 2 very common ones.
All video formats will require ‘Authoring’ to make a standard DVD-Video disc (OR a Blu-Ray-Video disc) to be player in a standard player. Simply burning a video file on a disc will not necessarily allow it to play in a standard player.
A modern high quality video format widely used in consumer and professional markets.
Another modern high quality video format widely used in consumer and professional markets. Developed by Apple.
I am republishing, over the next 3 weeks a series of explanations of some of the most used terms, in relation the optical media (CD, DVD and Blu-Ray) market. With links for more detailed explanations:
This simply means a hard copy CD or DVD which we can use to duplicate from.
The type of images here are not photographic images. The term relates to a ‘snapshot’ of the contents of a disc, the format and the exact layout.
The most important thing when working with disc images is you are sure you have formatted them correctly. Failing to do this will result in any discs made from them to be faulty. If there is any doubt, or you are new to this area, ask for help and advice. We have a team here who are available for email, phone or online chat and will be very happy to help and advise you.
An .iso image is a computer file that is an exact copy of an existing file system. ISO files are typically created through a software application that will extract the contents of a CD or DVD, and then write then as an exact electronic copy of the original disc to a file (a .iso file). This allows us to burn to burn an exact copy of the original onto CD or DVD.
Iso files are perfectly acceptable for CD-Rom and DVD-Video, but should not be used for CD-Audio due to technical restrictions
This format is very similar to a .ISO image with a few subtle changes and features which are beyond the scope of this article. For our purpose they can be used the same as an ISO, but more in depth information can be found in this article should you wish to learn more.
Like ISO files, .img should not be used for CD-Audio discs.
These files are a relatively new proprietary optical disc image file format. NRG files are used in the same way as other image formats, but are a more advanced and very versatile.
NRG files can be used for any type and format of disc, CD-ROM, CD-Audio, DVD-Video, Blu-Ray, etc.
This stands for Disc Description Protocol and is commonly used for delivery of disc pre-masters for commercial Glass Master Replication. The DDP format is compatible with all CD and DVD discs and is the industry professional format used in mass manufacture of discs. Although becoming more common, its a relatively unknown format used mainly within the optical media industry for transporting discs electronically between production facility’s and mastering houses.
DDP files can be accepted the same as all other listed image formats for duplication, but are not a specific requirement in any way. Further more detailed information on this format is available here.
This is a versatile image file format particularly useful for CD-Audio. The consist of two files,
Each of the Bin & Cue files are meaningless on their own, and must be provided together with their specific and matchingpartner, never mixed or edited. Further information of this file type can be found here.
Next week we will look at Audio files …….