CDR Sam

The Future of Taiwan CD-R, DVD+R and DVD-R Optical Disc Manufacturers

August 9, 2008 | Recordable CDs, Recordable DVDs

It is interesting to note that Digitimes had an article on Thursday, August 7, 2008 about the Optical Recordable Disc manufacturer, Prodisc, with CD-R, DVD-R, DVD+R and Dual Layer production lines in Taiwan and mainland China, clarifying it’s position about the “rumors” that they were discontinuing optical disc product.

company chairman Ming-fa Lin:
“”..Prodisc has invested more than NT$10 billion (about US$300 million) in production equipment of blank CD-R, DVD+/-R discs and has maintained a steady client base consisting of international vendors and overseas retail channels, the reason for not quitting production, Lin explained. Prodisc is negotiating with lending banks to seek their support for the company’s planned turnaround and continuing production of optical discs..”

As reported by  Digitimes IT news

This is after a report a day before in cens.com that Prodisc would be exiting the Optical business.

Essentially Prodisc is without capital and has plenty of troubles with Philips.  It certainly would not be in Philips interest for Prodisc to exit the business although the issue is really with recordable CD production which is not as large a market as DVD which is not under the Philips royalty.  The real issue is with the razor thin gross profits that translate into a loss every year and yet CMC, Ritek and Prodisc keep slugging it out. It’s hard to imagine how Prodisc can continue but then it’s hard to see how any of the Taiwan Optical manufacturers can continue.   They continue to drop the cost of blank discs even though the manufacturing costs keep going up leaving no profit at all.   They all are scrambling to shift over to other storage products like USB flash and flash cards.  Prodisc has been working on a film production project producing brightness enhancement film (BEF) as well as LED lamps and aspherical polycarbonate ophthalmic lenses with a Japanese company, Omron.

These are the major manufacturers of inexpensive recordable CD-R, recordable DVD, and at least for CMC and Ritek: Blu-ray recordable manufacturing. They have driven the market hard in OEM and branded media making it a very non-economical operation.  I’m certainly amazed that Prodisc would invest 300 million dollars for production equipment expecting a return on the investment.

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Imation Aquaguard vs Taiyo Yuden Watershield

August 4, 2008 | Recordable DVDs

One of the greatest challenges with CD and DVD manufacturers has been the inkjet printable surface of a recordable disc.  Many improvements have been made over time but the greatest achievement is the water-resistant surface of Taiyo Yuden.  Taiyo Yuden has created a glossy and water resistant printable surface called “Watershield”.  Imation offers a matte white ink-jet printable surface under the brand name: “AquaGuard”.  Depending on your requirements each has it’s place. 

Imation AquaGuard matte surface gives a more muted color spectrum, helping to hide any imperfections in the label image.   AquaGuard’s surface is very similar to a regular inkjet printable surface in some ways.  The product line spans CD-R, DVD-R, DVD+R and now recordable Blu-ray or BD-R. It features a hub printable inkjet printable disc surface.

Taiyo Yuden’s Watershield surface is glossy and dries very quickly.   Image resolution is good and color vibrancy is high.  It resembles silk-screened (although silk-screen is limited in color mixing) resolution. It’s very much the surface everyone compares their attempts at copying Watershield media.  Taiyo Yuden manufacturers Watershield in both CD-R and DVD-R and is distributed by Microboards Technologyin the United States.  Watershield CD-R and Watershield DVD-R are hub-printable. Taiyo Yuden CDs are 52x and the DVD-R is 16X.

 It’s important with any print job to make sure one is putting down the right amount of ink and not too much.  Many times this contributes to drying issues and in the long run financial issues

It’s best to use just the right amount of ink for best results.  Too little or two much ink can make even the best printable disc look amateurish.

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Epson Discpublisher PP-100

July 28, 2008 | Duplication Systems

Epson has introduced a new auto-loading duplicator and printing system that promises lower cost per print and better disc picking technology.

The Epson Discproducer PP-100 is a fully enclosed DVD publisher which features 2 multi-format drives for CD and DVD duplication.  The Discproducer holds up to 100 discs in it’s multi bin input/output disc caddies.  Three bins hold 50 discs each (and can be configured in just about any configuration including CD and DVD bins) and also features a Kiosk bin that allows access from the outside of the Epson Discproducer for single disc (up to five discs) output.

The Epson Discproducer features a Epson patented “AcuGrip” robotics disc picker technology that makes sure only a single disc is placed into the disc drive even if two discs are stuck together. the AcuGrip arm has a guide that inserts the picker in the center of the disc and then three independently powered gripers extend to separate the disc on the top from the rest of the stack. A kicker lever lifts the top disc for placement into the drive. If more then two discs are lifted, the PP-100 senses this and removes the discs and places them in the reject stacker.  This helps protect against interruptions in unattended production runs due to sticky discs.

Another major feature of the Epson Discproducer is the ink-jet technology that Epson has incorporated into the system.  Instead of using the standard thermal ink-jet technology that heats up the ink in the cartridge to create a bubble of ink (creating an individual dot) Epson uses a patented technology called MicroPiezo®.  MicroPiezo (somewhat like the joy buzzers at novelty stores) uses crystals that vibrate tens of thousands of times per second.  This forces the ink droplet out of a tiny nozzle in a very controlled manner that creates a perfectly round dot. MicroPiezo technology ensures uniform, stable ink droplets with virtually no satellites or misting.  Thermal inkjet technology tends to create an oval or in the worse case a teardrop shaped dot.

The Epson Discproducer has three publishing modes, External output, Standard output and Batch mode.   External output can produce up to five discs of ether DVD or CD.  Two of the internal stackers are used to hold the discs (50 discs per stacker) which can be DVD or CD or one stacker of each.  Standard mode can output up to 50 discs using the two input stackers to hold CD-R or DVD-R/+R blank discs.  Batch mode can output up to 100 discs.

The disc mastering, duplication and label printing software is developed as a single application although third party label software can be used also.

How much does the Epson Discproducer cost?  A street price of $2995  which includes a set of full ink cartridges.

What’s in the Box? • Epson Discproducer disc publisher • One set of six Epson high capacity ink cartridges • One package of five Taiyo Yuden WaterShield CDs • CD-ROM containing application software, printer driver and User’s Guide • Set-up Guide • USB cable • AC power cord Discproducer Specifications Publishing Speed (burn and print) CD Up to 30 discs/hour, Epson specified CD-R 600 MB data volume, writing speed: Drive max speed 40x DVD Up to 15 discs/hour, Epson specified DVD-R 3.8 GB data volume, writing speed: Drive max speed 12x Publishing Modes External output 1-5, 2 stackers & pick-up tray used (number of copies) Standard mode 1-50, 2 stackers used (autom.) Batch mode 1-100, 3 stackers used (autom.) Print Specifications Print speed Speed mode up to 60 discs/hour, bidirectional Quality mode up to 40 discs/hour, bidirectional Print head Black ink 180 nozzles, color ink 180 nozzles x 5 colors Print direction Bidirectional or uni-directional Print resolution Speed mode 1440 x 720 dpi Quality mode 1440 x 1440 dpi Ink pad life* Approximately 30,000 discs Ink Cartridge Ink type Dye ink Colors Cyan, magenta, yellow, light cyan, light magenta, black Yield** 1000 discs or more 45-116mm, 16.7% color sharing, continuous printing, mode setting: quality Print Area Standard setting for outside diameter: 116mm Outside diameter setting range: 70-119.4mm Standard setting for inside diameter: 45mm Inside diameter setting range: 18-50mm Guaranteed print area: 45-116mm CD/DVD Drives CD/DVD drives 2 drives Writing speed CD: maximum 40x DVD-R, DVD+R: maximum 12x DVD-R DL, DVD+R DL: maximum 8x Supported Media Size Outside diameter: 120mm ± 0.3mm Inside diameter: 15mm +0.1/-0mm Thickness: 1.2mm + 0.3/-0,1mm Form Supports common 4.7 inch (12cm) discs Does not support specially-shaped discs Type CD-R, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-R DL, DVD+R DL Surface Inkjet printable External Dimensions Width 14.84 inches (377mm), Depth 18.30 inches (465mm), Height 13.70 inches 348mm) excluding AC and USB cables Weight Approximately 52.9 lbs (24Kg), including stackers and ink cartridges, excluding AC cable and discs Software Total Disc Maker - Installed to user’s PC to publish discs Total Disc Monitor - Displays status of jobs and devices Total Disc Setup - Installed to user’s PC to make settings of Discproducer PP-100 TD Bridge System - Incorporation tool to use with other companies’ applications Adjustment Tool for PP-100 System Requirements OS: Windows XP Home/Professional SP2 or later Windows 2000 Professional SP4 or later CPU: Pentium 4, 1.4 GHz or higher, Memory: 512 Mbytes or larger, HDD capacity: 10 Gbytes or larger, 7200 rpm or more Graphic environment: XGA or more, 65536 colors or more Sound environment: a sound device and a supported driver must be installed for music media Interface USB 2.0 (High-speed) USB port: This product cannot be used in a USB port of a PC equipped with some ATI chipsets as follows: ATI’s Southbridge IXP (SB)460 or earlier Expected Lifetimes** Ink pad life Approximately 30,000 discs Burner life Approximately 16,000 to 40,000 discs Warranty 1 year limited warranty * The printer’s ink pad is estimated to become saturated and need replacing after about 30,000 discs. Based on printing 2,000 discs per month, bi-directional. Actual results will vary based on such factors as images printed, print settings, media type, frequency of use and temperature. ** Cartridge yields vary considerably based on images printed, print settings, media type, frequency of use and temperature. For print quality, a variable amount of ink remains in the cartridge after the “replace cartridge” indicator comes on. Discproducer ships with full cartridges and part of the ink from the first cartridges is used for priming the printer. See discproducer.epson.com for more information about cartridges.

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The Green Revolution: What is Eco Friendly?

July 8, 2008 | Disc Packaging

As more attention is spent on eco friendly products one must consider exactly what this means. Recycled products require additional manufacturing requirements that may not be friendly to the environment.  Of even greater  importance is the actual manufacture of original products in a manner that is environmentally friendly.    Recycling is important but the initial manufacturing should be a considered first.

Paper and Tyvek sleeves are probably the most eco friendly disc storage method.  Paper sleeve manufacture relies on the manufacture of paper.  How that paper is made is of great importance in the final product.  Plastics and paper made in the United States, Japan or the EU follow very strict regulations on manufacturing.   Regulations means that the product costs more money and interestingly enough many consumers vote with their wallets by choosing the cheaper product.  The concern is limited by cost. Unfortunately recycling costs money.  Sometimes there can be savings but that is a rarity.

One of our manufacturers is developing a “Corn” based resin that will be bio-degradable in the land fill. This project is nearing the field testing stage.

They are also in the early stages of adding an additive that allows “Oil” based resins to degrade in land fills after 20 to 30 months. The idea is to still regrind and reuse this material in new products, If this doesn’t happen and the product goes into the landfills it will degrade. This additive will be available in a month or so for field testing.

The manufacturer is beginning to manufacture Poly-pro Digi Trays for those who think Poly-pro is eco-friendlier then Styrene, and some work is being done on a Poly-pro CD jewel box and tray as well.  They are currently offer a 100% regrind Styrene CD Tray from in-house materials. They can also add about 5% regrind to the clear CD Box without loosing clarity. This combination produces a CD Set with about 37% regrind.  Generally they produce the Tray in dark algae green colorant.  This product will run in automation.

At their manufacturing facility all scrap material are sent to a reprocessor to be sold to others and not hauled to the land fill  All water used in the plant is 100% recycled through a  “closed loop” system

Most CD and DVD cases produced in the United States are sold in bulk which reduces the cost and landfill loading of cardboard boxes.  Most of their cardboard has some recycled content. All our colorant have had the lead and other heavy chemicals removed.

The ‘high end’ DVD case they produce requires 100% or near 100% virgin content because of the need for flatness etc. Some competitors and all Importers are heavily into regrinds and reprocessed materials.  In many cases these low quality materials are to save money and are not done to produce a quality “Green” product. This need for high quality material keeps them and other U.S. based manufacturers away from commonly available junk regrinds. They continue to look for and test quality reprocessed materials for their DVD line. In many cases there is no monetary saving, just the ability to be more Eco friendly.

In order for the manufacturers to be successful consumers have to buy the eco-friendly product and not  operate in a pure cost basis that encourages imported product (that well may be recycled) but at what environmental cost?

Unfortunately there is no certification for environmentally sound manufacturing except for the knowledge that the U.S. has very strict regulations on pollution.   It’s great to have a recycled sleeve (or DVD case) but if it created more damage to the environment then it’s not eco-friendly.  Hopefully the recent focus on enviromentally friendly products goes beyond a marketing claim and actually creates change in how we purchase products.  I would love to sell these kinds of products if there is a market.  Many of the manufacturers are in agreement but cost keeps coming up and the unwillingness of the majority of consumers to embrace more sensible packaging because it costs more.

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Blu-ray disc Network Server

June 15, 2008 | Recordable Blu-ray

We came up with a next generation recordable Blu-ray video network server featuring gigabit interface. The concept was to have a high definition BD-R video server.

The CD Dimensions Blu-Ray Network (BRN) is a Virtual Blu-ray Jukebox. Virtual Jukeboxes such as the BRN copy optical discs onto a hard drive, preserving the optical disc’s native format. The BRN can hold the content of 30 full Blu-Ray Discs, hundreds of DVDs or thousands of CDs, in any proportion on its expandable RAID.

There are many advantages to copying optical discs to hard drives. Hard drive access isn’t slowed significantly by many users accessing the system at the same time. Compared with conventional jukeboxes, virtual jukeboxes are smaller, higher capacity, more reliable due to lower parts count, less expensive and require less maintenance. The BRN copies the content of a Blu-ray in approximately 14 minutes. Only if you need to update discs every few days is this a significant inconvenience. In almost all environments, a Virtual Jukebox is superior in every important performance measurement to a conventional Jukebox.

Using the BRN as a Blu-ray Server will spoil you for any other method of storage and access. It accepts almost any format: Blu-Ray, musicCD, CDR, VCD, and DVDs. Pop the drawer, place the disc on the tray, and close the drawer. The disc is immediately accessable while it is copied to hard disk. Then the disc automatically ejects; no commands are necessary. Data streams from the hard drive at file server speed-about as quickly as a 1000-base-t network can absorb it. The BRN is broadly compatible. It is compatible with Microsoft’s Windows 2003 Server including most Active Directory^TM features. It is compatible with Novell Netware 3.1x, 4.x, and 5.x. It is compatible with Apple’s MacOS 7.x, 8.x. It is compatible with Unix and Web browsers Internet Explorer and Netscape. It works under NetBEUI, NetBIOS over TCP/IP, Netware Bindery, NCP (IPX and IP), NDS, AppleTalk, and NFS. Security is via share level or user level, up to 512 group identities.

The BRN consists of an all-in-one small form factor motherboard, Intel Tutalin processor, 512 MB RAM, Three ATA hard drives with 500 GB each capacity, a Blu-ray R/W load drive, all integrated, tested, and documented by Academy Computer Services, Inc.. Cables and instructions are included, along with our unlimited 800 line support with purchase. The unit is housed in a heavy duty galvanized steel enclosure with two cooling fans and a 230 Watt power supply.

. Hard Drives Blu-Ray RW Drive Model 500 GB Qty 3 upgradable to 8 drives 2x Blu-Ray, 16X CD-ROM, 4X DVD-ROM, minimum load drive Compatibility ATA interface BR-RE, BD-R DVD-5, DVD-9, , CD-R compatible Access Time 8 ms. Average 160 ms. average Transfer Rate 19.9 MB/sec. sustained 6 MB/sec. sustained, CD Mode typical Buffer memory 8 Mbytes 6 MB Rotational Speed 5,400 RPM Up to 7,800 RPM Central Processing Unit Processor 1.2-Ghz Pentium RAM 512 MB Software Easy CD Drive Interfaces 4 ATA for hard drives, 1 EIDE for optical drives Network Dual Gigabit, downward compatible. 10/100/1000-base-t interface Networking Compatibility Novell NetWare, Windows 2003 Server, Unix, Macintosh, fully Multimedia capable, including Mpeg Video Data Transfer 10-100-1000 Mbit/sec. Connectivity CAT 5 or 6 for Gigabit Setup Plug-and-play Software 6144 User license for Easy CD included Updates Web-based remote Enclosure Form Factor 4u rack Power Supply 230W 110/220 switchable, redundant Cooling Fans Two 3″, one 2″ hard drive, 1½” CPU Operating Temp 5° C to 50° C Non-condensing Regulatory UL, CSA Power Supply, FCC Class A integration Warranty: One year parts and labor from date of purchase. Warranty and Disclaimer Specifications subject to change without notice. All trademarks the property of their respective companies.

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