Artletic Brand Engineering offers unique services that enable the creation, printing and duplication of customized CDs, DVDs and related custom inserts & packaging. We specialise in short run CD & DVD printing and duplication, generally up to 1000 units, for customers who need a high-quality product within a short turnaround time-frame - by producing and fulfilling orders on-demand, throughout Gauteng as well as the rest of South Africa.
Not only are these services in great demand with the home-user for his/her music, movie and digital photo collections, but our CD & DVD print and duplication services are also ideal for many customized applications often required by:
- Marketing and PR professionals.
- Trades Show Exhibitors.
- Education and training professionals.
- Conference organizations and planners.
- Software developers.
- Musicians, Photographers and other artists.
Thermal re-tranfer printing vs. silk-screen & thermal printing
SILKSCREEN PRINTING:
The most professional and industry standard is the silkscreen. Screens will give you a very high resolution print on the silver lacquer disc surface. You should be aware that on smaller orders, - silk-screening your disc can be a fairly expensive option. It requires film images, the manufacture of screens, and PMS spot colour inks. Because the setup for silk-screening can be manually intensive and fairly expensive, it is usually recommended to silkscreen larger run orders only. We organise silk-screening on all project order sizes. Cost for this option is variable and needs to be quoted on a per job basis.
THERMAL PRINTING:
Thermal printing is usually less expensive than silkscreen printing as it doesn't require film output or the manufacture of screens, and is a great substitution to the more expensive silk-screen printing, especially on short run orders. While it delivers a professional looking quality print on graphics with solid colours, it is not capable of photo-quality prints.
THERMAL RE-TRANSFER PRINTING:
Thermal re-transfer printing is a printing method that bridges the gap between silkscreen and thermal printing. It delivers high quality prints (175-line as opposed to 120-line dpi of silkscreen prints), and is capable of photo-quality prints, with a durable professional finish. As it does not require the time-consuming and extra cost involved in silkscreen printing, it is a less expensive and faster printing method on smaller quantities of printed disc orders, typically less than 1000 unit orders, can save you a lot of setup fees, time, and money vs. silk-screening.
OTHER PRINTING METHODS:
Direct-to-disc Inkjet Printing
Direct Inkjet disc printing is the most cost effective way to print a short run of discs with full colour graphic images. However, these printed discs are more expensive to manufacture than re-transfer thermal, thermal or screen printed discs because they require a special surface. Also, the printed discs are usually not as crisp and will not have the glossy finish (unless you have your discs lacquered afterwards) as re-transfer thermal, thermal or screened discs, and in some cases may not be completely smudge proof, but are capable of full colour graphic images.
Sticky Labels
Simple inkjet/laser printed "stick-on" labels, though delivering a good-looking graphics print, is not a recommended disc printing method, due to the fact that the labels will peel, fade, and deteriorate over time, which will make your disc unusable.
Printing Issues
COLOUR MATCHING ISSUES
It is important to mention here that due to the different printing methods and print surfaces used when printing either discs or inserts, there will be slight variations in colour rendition between printed discs and printed inserts. Also, colours on actual discs may not exactly match that as seen on your computer screen due to the difference between the way colour is represented on monitors versus actual print.
The colours you see on your computer monitor depend on the settings of that monitor and can only approximate what you will see on your disc surface. Monitor colour spaces are in RGB and disc surface for CD and DVD printing is done in CMYK. The result is that there are some colours which can be displayed on a screen which cannot be reproduced in print and vice versa. It is possible there will be only a minor shift and possible a more dramatic one depending on the colours you use, though typically, they are very comparable.
If you are concerned about colour-matching, we strongly suggest that you order a single disc and/or insert as a test print before placing your full order.
Duplications vs. Replication - The difference explained
DUPLICATION
Duplication is the way in which smaller quantities of CD's or DVD's are "manufactured". CD-R and DVD-R/DVD+R media is loaded into burners and your information is digitally extracted from your master CD-R or DVD-R, then transferred/written to the blank discs. This duplicating method is best used for small to medium quantity orders.
REPLICATION
Replication is the method used to manufacture mass quantities of CD's or DVD's. A "glass master" of your information is made which in turn produces "stampers" which are used for injection moulding the information of the glass master onto foil. The mastered information is then protected by layers of polycarbonate plastic. Because most of this process is automated, the cost per disc/unit is factored into the price and is therefore a very affordable solution for orders generally greater than 1000 or 2000 pieces.
The difference between duplicated and replicated discs
There is NO difference between the data contained on a duplicated disc and the data contained on a disc replicated from a glass master. Both processes extract the information from your master disc in exactly the same way. The only difference is the method that was used to manufacture your disc.
Discs that are duplicated are just as reliable as replicated discs, due to the fact that writable media of today is manufactured under strict guidelines. Though there are still many inferior brands of discs available in the market, by using only professional duplicating equipment and high quality media, you should be assured of receiving a quality product. My supplier uses only the best equipment and grade-A disc media to process your order. Your duplicated disc is verified in our duplication equipment prior to despatch and will match your master source exactly.
How to place your disc duplication order
Duplication orders can be placed by corresponding with us via the website, e-mail or giving us a call. (See our
'contact us' page for details.) Your master disc can be sent to me either via courier, post or personal delivery, and must be clearly marked with your name, company name (if applicable), contact number and person, and order nr as given to you upon placement and payment of your order.
When sending in your CD or DVD Master Copy for duplication, be sure to test your master thoroughly before mailing it. If you plan to place a large order, I strongly recommend that you start by placing an order for a single duplicated CD or DVD so that you can be sure you are happy with the results before placing your full order.
It is best to send us a COPY of your master, as I do not return masters. I keep masters on file for an extended period, but eventually destroy them.
Orders can be placed for combined print-and-duplicated CD's or DVD's or for duplication only. Please note that we do not accept client-supplied discs for duplication orders - we use only our own A-grade disc media for duplication orders.
Duplication issues
It is important to re-iterate that your content is duplicated exactly as I receive it, i.e. if there are skips or pops in your audio master, these will be faithfully reproduced. If you want your Data CD to autorun but fail to place the autorun at the root level, your file structure will be reproduced as received. If your DVD master has a glitch and will not play, so will the DVD copies that we produce for you. No returns will be accepted if there is no manufacturing defect and your duplicated discs are identical in content to your master.
Please test your master carefully before mailing it to us.
Formats that can be duplicated include: DVD Video, CD-R/RW, Audio CD, CD-ROM, CD-DA, Photo CD, Video CD, CD-I, CD-Extra, and CD-Text.
Copyrights
Due to strict compliance to South African Copyright Laws, we will under no circumstances duplicate any copyrighted material unless clients can show proof that they have permission to use such copyrighted material for duplication.
Volume discounts & free delivery service
The speedy duplication process means that, given the standard volume discounts we offer on all orders that our duplication service is affordable to all our customers.
