CDR Sam

Victor Advanced Media

February 8, 2009 | Recordable CDs

I was reading over some old posts on another blog and a ran across an article in May, 2oo8 about a union between Taiyo Yuden and JVC.  JVC sold Taiyo Yuden a share in it’s media business which they had put under the subsidiary Victor Company of Japan and it is now re-structured as Victor Advanced Media.  There is documentation on the agreement between JVC and Taiyo Yuden to sell part of thel JVC media concern (Victor Company of Japan) in order to strengthen core businesses.  So now since July 2008 the new company, Victor Advanced Media has been operating in Japan reselling Taiyo Yuden CDs and DVDs.    This is a link to the original documentation from JVC  Press Release May 26th,2008

On  October 1st Taiyo Yuden announced:   …Following stock acquisition, Victor Advanced Media will be included in Taiyo Yuden’s scope of consolidation as a subsidiary company from the third quarter of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2009. The effect of the acquisition on the company’s consolidated performance for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2009 is expected to be insignificant.

Link to TY press release

So Taiyo Yuden now owns JVC media business which would include intellectual rights to the disc technology.  Hmm I wonder what Taiyo Yuden wants with that?  I guess we will see after March 31st, 2009

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USB FlashDrive Duplication and Custom USB Flash Drive Printing

January 27, 2009 | USB Flash and Flash Memory

With the explosive growth of USB pen drives and the growth of custom USB flash drives for giveaway promotional USB drives I thought it time to discuss some of the options for the “do it yourself” crowd.

To start,  consideration should be made as to the requirements of the job or jobs.  Recommending a capital expense in these challenging times really needs to be thought over well. For a one-off job outsourcing your custom USB flash pen drives might be the best solution.  This reduces the expense of purchasing the equipment and let’s the publisher focus on content and print design.  Typically the turn around time is 7 business days once the graphics have been accepted. The duplication is very quick but the printing is more involved.  If you are producing promotional USB drives that represent one or two campaigns then having them pre-printed may be the answer along with a USB flash duplicator.

Typical printing is accomplished using “pad printing” which uses a silicone rubber stamp for each color.  This is done by using an indirect offset (gravure) printing process that involves an image being transferred from the printing plate (cliché) via a silicone pad onto a substrate (surface to be printed).  Pad printing inks are “solvent-based” and require mixing with additives at the time of use. They typically dry to the touch in seconds although complete drying (cure) might take a substantially longer period of time.  The equipment and inks required for this process are not for the typical office environment.  The equipment is expensive and complicated and requires special mixing of the inks.

An option to the pad printing process is to use a specialized thermal printer that applies a wax-based resin to the surface of the USB drive.  The Teac P-55C-ST USB Flash Drive Printer prints on the “cap” of a swivel type drive.  Currently

this is the only style USB flashdrive that can be printed with the Teac P-55 thermal re-transfer printer.

Duplication of data on USB drives is performed by a specialized duplicator that has ports for each drive and a ‘master’ slot for the drive being copied depending on the system configuration. Some duplicators are “standalone” and some are “PC-attached”.  Standalone USB flash duplicators rely on a built in solid state controller that manages the duplication data transfer.  PC attached USB duplicators use the computer’s USB port or hard drive to transfer data and manage the duplication verification process.  Standalone is great for class room applications and after presentation file transfers.

PC based systems give you the ultimate control to manage your data transfer and ability to change files on the fly. Which ever system one chooses the power to duplicate to a large segment of USB drives certainly beats the alternatives.

USB duplicators range from 7 ports up to 118 port USB duplicator

There is a wide range of capacity among USB flash duplicators but one thing is for certain: Your needs for capacity will increase.  Brands to consider? CD Dimensions,  Microboards Technology,  Nexcopy,  MF Digital and Teac USB flash duplicators.  Flash duplication represents a new era of physical data distribution.

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Transcend JetFlash 64Gb

January 17, 2009 | USB Flash and Flash Memory

I bought a 64Gb USB flash drive made by Transcend to store my audio disc collection in MP3 format.  It was an amazing journey going through my old discs and looking over the artwork and thinking about the anonymity of a flashdrive.  And yet with 500 or so discs it’s hard to remember what you have so I suppose discs can also have their own form of anonymity.  I used Apple iTunes which worked well for creating an audio library.  I’m not crazy about Windows Media Player or that other one,  Real Something 

iTunes has a better file management system and can retrieve artwork if you have an account with iTunes.  I’m not trying to push iTunes: it just happens to work better then anything else right now.    If you can get Windows Media Player to play along then more power to you.  I could not get it to play more then one song at a time.

The Transcend JetFlash is not the fastest in writing (nor the slowest) but then I’m only adding anyway for portable music access.  Reading is acceptable.  The drive is a little larger then a standard drive (wider) and in some circumstances it will fit very tightly.  The Transcend JetFlash 64Gb includes a USB extension cable to work around that issue. The JetFlash also ships with a detachable  lanyard . I bought it for $70 during Christmas.  Looking on Transcend’s web site it’s retail is $189.00    $100 on Amazon

OK some specs:

Fully compatible with Hi-Speed USB 2.0
Easy Plug and Play installation
JetFlash® elite Software pack includes:
-PC-Lock Function: Makes JetFlash® a key to lock your computer
-Secret-Zip Function: Compress and/or Password protect saved files using AES Encryption
-E-Mail Function: Use your JetFlash® to Securely Send, Receive and Save e-mails
-AutoLogin Function: Automatically login to websites where you have a password
-Favorites Function: Store all your favorite website addresses on the JetFlash®
-DataBackup Function: Backup, Restore and Synchronize your Data using the JetFlash®
Driverless
USB powered. No external power, or battery needed

Dimensions:
75mm x 25mm x 11mm (1GB-8GB)
88mm x 33mm x 15mm (16GB)
Transfer Speed:
Read up to 16 MByte/sec, Write up to 12 MByte/sec (1GB~4GB)
Read up to 30 MByte/sec, Write up to 25 MByte/sec (8GB~16GB))
The actual read/write speed shall be printed on the product packaging
Data Retention:
Up to 10 years

Durability:
>100,000 program/erase cycles

System Requirement - Desktop or notebook computer with USB Port
- Microsoft Windows® 2000
- Microsoft Windows® ME
- Microsoft Windows® XP
- Microsoft Windows® Vista
- Mac® OS 9.0 or later
- Linux® Kernel 2.4.2 or later

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Microboards QDL 1000 DVD Duplicator Auto Loader

January 6, 2009 | Duplication Systems

Microboards Technology announced today the release of a new DVD duplicator autoloader called the QDL-1000

The Microboards QDL-1000 Quic Disc Loader features a single CD DVD recorder, standalone operation and a built in 160GB hard drive for disc imaging.

Disc loading is accomplished by a robotics arm that picks up discs in the lower input tray and places it into the recording drive.  The QDL burns DVDs at 20X and CDs at 40X and can burn up to 25 discs before reloading.

Simple operation is achieved through a  push button pad and a 20×2 LCD display.  The menu can operate in three languages, English, Spanish and French.

The Microboards QDL-1000 Quic Disc Loader Measures in at just 9″ high and 16″ wide and weighs 19 Lbs. A perfect DVD Duplicator size for the office or any place you need to make some CD or DVD discs fast.

The QDL comes with a one year return to depot warranty

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Postively positive

December 31, 2008 | Random Blackouts

Well it’s been an interesting year and as we creep past the various holidays I’m left with a feeling of anticipation for the new year.  Looking back in 2008 we saw changes in the global economic state of the likes never seen before.  At first IT felt safe after all how much could be cut then had already?  The credit freeze far out did the recession (not to be confused with).

The iPhone,

It’s been a rough storm for Plasmon. Plasmon LTD failing to get funding and going into bankruptcy, a US private equity holding company purchased certain assets of the British company and continuing on.

Prodisc fighting for it’s life (it looks very grime for the manufacturer of blank CD-R, DVD-R and DVD+R discs).  Can you Yahoo?

We saw the victory of Blu-ray format over HD-DVD bringing an end to the never ending format wars.  Victory was short lived with the coming of the economic crisis and the up-converting DVD players which produce a better image then conventional DVD players and do not require a expensive upgrade.  Up-converting DVD players are under $100 vs. $400 for a Blu-ray player and then the cost of discs.  It will be a tough uphill struggle given the times.

Certainly the video on demand business in the United States is questionable given the weak network connections on the last mile of the Internet.  YouTube grows in viral entertainment and yet there is a core of some really good stuff on the service.  Maybe high definition is not everything.  Solid state flash memory gives portability and a built in port that overcomes the costs of other forms of data storage.  Consider the optical drive I’m so near and dear to.  In order to play or read a CD one must have a drive.  It takes up space and costs money.  In order to record one must have special media to create a disc.  It certainly can be done and is being done but a flashdrives and thumb drives  offer a quicker interface not dependent on a disc format.  Will it end there?   Secure Digital and Micro Secure Digital format offer an even smaller format.  Easily interfaced with smart phones, back to the iPhone and the Smart Phone generation. Where will cloud computing take us? will high definition even be required?  WiMAX would certainly provide the next step in the “revolution”.

Happy New Year!

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