Options for small scale Blu-Ray/DVD duplication (25-70)

S

Soundfx4

Active member
Hello,

I am looking into options for duplicating Blu-Ray and DVDs for the parents/students of a local dance studio. The quantity would likely be no more than 70 (mix of DVD and Blu-Ray) and I'm trying to figure out what my best options would be.

I've looked at Disk Makers and their cheapest blu-ray duplication is about $11 each. That's not bad, and it includes a printed disc, blu-ray case and printed cover. I haven't checked their DVD prices, but I'm sure they're quite a bit cheaper. I've considered this option, but on such a small scale, I'm thinking it may be better/cheaper to just handle it myself but this raises a lot of questions. The first and foremost, labeling the discs...I'd like the label to look the best it possibly can and I know there are some options here, I've just never seen these options with my own eyes other than one; printing with an ink jet printer and disc shaped stickers...and I was far from impressed with the quality. So what would be the best option for professionally labeling my discs?

The second and last question; The blu-ray package's printed label (the folded cover that goes behind the transparent plastic). I would also like to have these printed out with a very professional look that I know I can't get from a simple ink jet printer and paper. What options do I have here?

Those are the only two concerns I have. I'm planning on just burning the blu-rays one at a time with my burner and ordering the blu-ray packaging somewhere online (I'm sure it wouldn't cost very much), but if either of those things don't sound like the best idea, I'm definitely open for suggestions for alternatives there as well.


Thank you very much!!
 
I considered DIY DVD's several years back and opted instead to go with Discmakers. I have had them do various projects including 1,000 DVD replicated orders and short-run 100 DVD-R duplicated projects for retail sale. This included printed face of the DVD, case, 4 color printed insert, shrink-wrap and bar code. I have been very happy with their work and have never had a customer return a disk. I guess it comes down to what your time is worth if you DIY and how professional and reliable a product you can make vs. using a DVD manufacturer.
 
Last edited:
Mark Williams said:
I considered DIY DVD's several years back and opted instead to go with Discmakers. I have had them do various projects including 1,000 DVD replicated orders and short-run 100 DVD-R duplicated projects for retail sale. This included printed face of the DVD, case, 4 color printed insert, shrink-wrap and bar code. I have been very happy with their work and have never had a customer return a disk. I guess it comes down to what your time is worth if you DIY and how professional and reliable a product you can make vs. using a DVD manufacturer.
Click to expand...

I know one thing at least, If I go with Disc Makers, I'm going to order the discs as blank BD-R because it knocks about $1.50 off each disc and it will be faster (they require I mail in a BD-R to be duplicated). But the price per disc with Disc makers is going to be $9.22 each (including shipping) and that's a bit pricy. It comes down significantly at 50 BD-Rs ($5.74 each) but I seriously doubt there will be that many BD-Rs ordered by the parents/students. It might be up to 70 total orders, but that would be a mix of DVD and Blu-Ray and sadly the majority of orders will likely be DVD (more profit for me on the DVDs, but it's sad because it's 2015 and people still use DVDs >.< ). I guess what it comes down to is I'm looking at having to buy a printer myself designed for printing on discs or go with Disc makers...

If I may ask you though; How do they print on their duplicated discs? Do they use inkjet or thermal printing? I'm very unattracted to the idea of inkjet printing, but I've never seen a thermal printed disc before and it sounds like better quality and more durable print.

Thanks!
 
The replicated and duplicated disc graphics are silk screened. Very high quality. I usually have mine done in black ink to save some money. I put the emphasis on the full color DVD jacket which is what the buyer sees before purchase.
 
Last edited:
Mark Williams said:
The replicated and duplicated disc graphics are silk screened. Very high quality. I usually have mine done in black ink on the ink to save some money. I put the emphasis on the full color DVD jacket which is what the buyer sees before purchase.
Click to expand...

I'm heavily leaning towards disc makers now. I actually just got out of a chat with them and I asked them about their printing methods/options and they told me that their replicated discs are silk screen printed, and their duplicated Blu-Rays are thermal. Did they used to use silk screening for both maybe? Or maybe do the results of silk screen and thermal printing look really similar? Either way, I know you've seen these with your own eyes and it's very reassuring to hear you say they are very high quality :) I'm just mainly curious about the difference in quality/look of thermal and silk screening. I see silk screen printing results all the time on every movie I've ever bought or rented, but I don't think I've ever seen thermal, so I can't compare the two.
 
Well on my duplicated and replicated DVDs it is silk screened. Have never done blu-ray small quanties so I don't know.
 
Last edited:
If you're doing less than 100 at a time, and you're going to be doing it fairly regularly, you may as well get set up to do it yourself. The price difference between getting them done (100 @$11 = $1100) and buying a burner and printer is going to be worth it after just one round.
Good quality print ready blank BD-Rs are a buck, and depending on how you're setup the time is minimal. I do it a lot for screener copies of major projects that I'm authoring for replication. I can kick out a couple dozen in a day and I just burn them in the background while doing other work. It's a little inconvenient, but not really that bad if you're already going to be sitting there.
There are a couple of options to do this...

Option 1: Burn them one at a time on your computer. Make a .iso for the BluRay and burn that using Toast (or similar) since it's quicker than burning a disc out of Encore or whatever authoring program you have. Get an inkjet printer that can handle discs. If you're doing a dozen at a time and not every day, then this is the way to go. You'll get them done before DiscMakers even receives your master.

Option 2: Get a duplicator and printer. More expensive, but waaaay faster and less hassle. You make one BD, put it in the duplicator and away it goes making several copies at once. The dedicated disc printers take a stack of discs and print them automatically.

Option 1.5: Get a bunch of discs preprinted with your logo or the graphics for the production you keep doing and just leave a space on there for the date or details to be written in with a sharpie, or if you're really good with lining it up you can make a template to just print that part in your inkjet printer.

Oh yeah...you mentioned the printed labels for discs before...NEVER do that! Those are the worst! If you put one of those in a slot loading laptop that's running a little bit warm, the glue gets soft and the label can come off the disc and get stuck in the drive when you eject it. You now owe your customer a new laptop drive plus labor.
 
Mark Williams said:
Well on my duplicated and replicated DVDs it is silk screened. Have never done blu-ray so I don't know.
Click to expand...
Replicated discs will be silk screened and duplicated discs are almost always thermal printed. Thermal printing usually looks really good so most people wouldn't be able to spot any difference. The reason they use two methods is that silk screen costs money to set up, but then is really cheap per disc. Thermal costs a lot more per disc but doesn't have a setup charge. Round numbers for the sake of comparison: Silk screen setup $20/color x 5 (white background is a color!) $100 setup, but $.01 per disc, so 1000 = $110 silk screened while thermal is $.10 per disc so 1000 = $100. Once you're over 1,000 DVDs silk screen makes way more sense than thermal print. Another example silk screen vs thermal 10,000 is $200 vs $1,000 and 100 DVD is $101 vs $10. So it has nothing to do with quality, just cost when scaled up or down for the job.
 
Andrius Simutis said:
If you're doing less than 100 at a time, and you're going to be doing it fairly regularly, you may as well get set up to do it yourself. The price difference between getting them done (100 @$11 = $1100) and buying a burner and printer is going to be worth it after just one round.
Good quality print ready blank BD-Rs are a buck, and depending on how you're setup the time is minimal. I do it a lot for screener copies of major projects that I'm authoring for replication. I can kick out a couple dozen in a day and I just burn them in the background while doing other work. It's a little inconvenient, but not really that bad if you're already going to be sitting there.
There are a couple of options to do this...

Option 1: Burn them one at a time on your computer. Make a .iso for the BluRay and burn that using Toast (or similar) since it's quicker than burning a disc out of Encore or whatever authoring program you have. Get an inkjet printer that can handle discs. If you're doing a dozen at a time and not every day, then this is the way to go. You'll get them done before DiscMakers even receives your master.

Option 2: Get a duplicator and printer. More expensive, but waaaay faster and less hassle. You make one BD, put it in the duplicator and away it goes making several copies at once. The dedicated disc printers take a stack of discs and print them automatically.

Option 1.5: Get a bunch of discs preprinted with your logo or the graphics for the production you keep doing and just leave a space on there for the date or details to be written in with a sharpie, or if you're really good with lining it up you can make a template to just print that part in your inkjet printer.

Oh yeah...you mentioned the printed labels for discs before...NEVER do that! Those are the worst! If you put one of those in a slot loading laptop that's running a little bit warm, the glue gets soft and the label can come off the disc and get stuck in the drive when you eject it. You now owe your customer a new laptop drive plus labor.
Click to expand...

At the moment I won't be doing it too regularly. But cost of $11 per is at less than 50 discs and with duplication included. At 50, the cost is $5.78 per no duplication. And I'm not sure what it is at 100. I've decided not to have disc makers duplicate my disc, but just print and package them. It's cheaper that way, and I don't have to wait for them to receive my master. So even if I can't get 50, the cost of $9.22 each isn't bad.

I will definitely look into doing this myself once I start getting more gigs, but atm I think disc makers is my best option. I would want to invest in a thermal printer though, as inkjet printed quality is not very impressive and it's not very resilient.

I'm not sure why you think I would ever want use printed labels, I did mention them, but I mentioned how unimpressed I was with the quality. So no worries on that part ;) I didn't, however, think about the glue melting and destroying a drive, so I've even more reason not to use those haha. :)
 
Andrius Simutis said:
Replicated discs will be silk screened and duplicated discs are almost always thermal printed. Thermal printing usually looks really good so most people wouldn't be able to spot any difference. The reason they use two methods is that silk screen costs money to set up, but then is really cheap per disc. Thermal costs a lot more per disc but doesn't have a setup charge. Round numbers for the sake of comparison: Silk screen setup $20/color x 5 (white background is a color!) $100 setup, but $.01 per disc, so 1000 = $110 silk screened while thermal is $.10 per disc so 1000 = $100. Once you're over 1,000 DVDs silk screen makes way more sense than thermal print. Another example silk screen vs thermal 10,000 is $200 vs $1,000 and 100 DVD is $101 vs $10. So it has nothing to do with quality, just cost when scaled up or down for the job.
Click to expand...

I love seeing that :D It's very reassuring that I'll be very happy with thermal printing! :) thank you for clearing that up!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top