According to Digitimes Prodisc is planning to discontinue CD-R production. This is the continuing saga of the Philips action against several Taiwan CD-R manufacturers over royalty payments.
CMC, Ritek and Prodisc have been in negotiation with Philips since last year when the last license ran out. Digitimes had pointed out that the troubles for Prodisc really started with them publicly
protesting how unfair the royalty program is. Philips requested and received a request to seize assets of Prodisc in Taiwan which includes a manufacturing facility and money in a bank account.
Stay Tuned
This is a link to the full story Digitimes article
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CD Dimensions is offering free sample packs of the thermal and inkjet printable CD-R and DVD-R Falcon Media, made by FTI
Free Sample Offer
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There is a new manufacturer of CD-R, DVD-R, DVD+R, Dual Layer and Blu-ray (BD-R) called Falcon Technologies International.
FTI is a new bred of recordable disc manufacturer with an eye on consistanly superior printable surfaces in both thermal printable and inkjet printable discs.
I have printed a lot of discs and I was blown away by the color reproduction with our HP based CD printer. Unlike Taiyo Yuden, Falcon has a phthalocyanine based dye that appears as a silver gold on the burning side. Swiss and Japanese engineers.
There has not been a lot of choices out there (outside of Taiwan). Don't get me wrong Taiwan is a great but the "big three" have been caught in non-profitable struggle for a few years and consistency has been an issue. All depends on who they are making the product for and at what price. There is a saying in many languages that you can have cheap or you can have quality but you can't have both ;) CMC, Ritek and Prodisc are the "big three". Lot's of second tier manufacturers (smaller operations, some better, some worse). There has been a lot of consolidation in recordable CD-R media and recordable DVD industry. Imation has taken over TDK production except for Blu-ray and the magnetic tape group. Most of the brands you know are actually OEM'd to the big three or a combination of second tier manufacturers in China and Taiwan. It's really an economy of scale solution.
So with great excitement I have been running Falcon Technologies CD and DVD recordables through their paces. It costs a little more and you are not going to find it at your
local paperclip store just yet but if you need some good printable recordable discs then Falcon Media is the way to go. The product is engineered with quality as the number one priority.
Easy to say I know. They really do it.
manufacturer site:
http://www.falconrak.com
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I'm always amused when the discussion comes up about on-demand downloads and how they will replace optical media (CD-R, DVD and Blu-ray Disc) Nothing could be farther from the truth.
First let's get the Hollywood fantasy out into the open: On-demand Downloads for MPEG-2 (DVD) and MPEG-4 (Blu-ray). To understand the technology one must be aware that the MPEG formats are compression methods. Now what does that mean? It means that the data will not fit on the disc in an un-compressed form and so a method was created to squeeze the data in (compressing) by removing repeating frames (this is a simplification of the process). This creates an inferior copy of the un-compressed video but for the most part we can not tell the difference. There are "artifacts" that are created and if you understand how the compression method works you can see them in a DVD. Blu-ray is much more refined and looks far better, stunning in fact.
What does this have to do with on-demand downloads?
The Internet also has compression methods: the one most people are aware of is MP3 or MPEG-1 layer 3.
This is a lossy compression algorithm that creates an inferior copy of a audio file. It essentially clips the highs (and lows) of a audio recording, similar to what radio stations use to conserve power in broadcasting.
That means it sounds bad unless you blew out your eardrums with those little buds.
Now if you have ever downloaded MP3 or listened to streaming audio you would be very much aware of the buffering issue (even with a high speed connection). Now if like me you also like to look at video clips on line you would observe a similar phenomena. Now imagine trying to squeeze 4.3 GB (or 25GB+ for blu-ray)
(instead of a couple of megabytes file). LOL you might never finish downloading that "DVD Movie"
So what does the "on-demand" crowd come up with: Oh let's compress it more so it looks like a VHS (or more like MPEG-1, used for video CDs).
So now you get a very poor copy of a video... Just think what happens to a high def video? There is no point to on-demand downloads unless you are looking at a movie on your cell phone (I'm not going there).
High fidelity and the Internet as we know it today do not mix. Now if everyone started downloading full length movies on a large scale (has not happened to date) the pipeline would slow down to the speed of a very slow turtle. Even now people complain about the draw on resources that U Tube puts on network systems (a 3 minute video).
Now where did this all start?
Apple came up with a plan...
Not that others had tried the same thing....
But Apple was able to bring it all together and package it well. Actually they packaged two things very well...
The iPod
...and iTune, digital download and management system for both the desktop, laptop or iPOD, double barrels...brilliant (I hate Steve ;) )
I remember opening one that had been given to me as a gift. It just broke my heart to break open the packaging (and as all the Macs I have owned had the same Aura around them....). I did mention I hate Steve ;)
OK I had one from John Sculley's rein (I actually liked him and his vision (powerPC all the way!!!) of course contrary to the course that was taken, Steve did not consult with me so he got stuck with the iPodand iTunes I could have saved him from this foolish mistake :D
Now why the sarcasm and all that? Because Steve Jobs was brilliant. He was able to overcome several marketing issues with the related and unrelated elements and sprinkle some magic dust and the darn thing glimmers glossy white with some minimalist graphics on it. I use PC's with MS stuff and Linux now. I have found them more economical...I may have owned more macs that most people out there. I know some of you out there still are holding onto your Apple II and LISA. Of course from that came the Mac (darn Steve again, not listening to me).
I digress.
Convience ruled over High Def.
People sacrificed quality for convenience.
I did mention I own and use my iPod?
So I'm not pointing fingers.
I also happen to own several CD players and recording systems and DVD... have not gone Blu-ray yet. I'm a recordable man. Got to have Blu-ray recordable. It's here but very expensive for poor folk like me. Discs offer an excellent off-line storage method. I can store a bunch of home movies on my hard drive for quick access and watching "on-demand". I have tried streaming it across my network but it looks like it may need gigabyte ethernet to move it fast enough.
There was an attempt to bring forward DVD-Audio (because CD actually is ...how do I say this? "compressed".. Although to most of us it's hard to tell the difference and it adds to the overhead of the track)
At any rate that's all audio discussion. Video and High Definition is something different. Will be choose a better quality image or the convenience of on-demand (if it were possible on a wide scale) with the same or better quality? I believe that people will choose quality over convenience in the video market (there will be some niche video like we see now on the Internet, that certainly will not go away). I say this because unlike audio the trend has been towards bigger and bigger screens even before LCD and Plasma. That being said I think the cable companies with a hard line to the subscribers could pull something off but that's not really the Internet, more the internet or wide area network. I think the Internet video scene will evolve into a Indie oasis. It certainly is on it's way now. I think that is where it rules as a means of marketing music and video with the understanding that it's not the High Def version. Like listening to the radio. You want to collect the inferior quality video or audio or the high definition ...
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I can not tell you how many times I have heard "I want good quality recordable CDs and a cheap price". What does that mean? How do you determine quality CDs and a cheap price? I mean they are polar opposites of each other. So where does this perceived cheap good quality media come from?
Well I can answer that: Nowhere.
Indeed there is always a story behind the "deals" that are out there. Funny how they are not for "name brand CD-Rs" but generic (or store brand) type products.
The truth is there are a very limited amount of CD-R manufacturers left in the world. I don't even think they would fit on five fingers if you get my point: most media is manufactured by three companies: CMC, Ritek and Prodisc. How can that be? you ask. As profits have shrunk on CD-R disc manufacturing more and more companies have gone out of business or switched over to manufacturing DVDs which is perceived to generate more revenue. So all the brands one sees out in the market are produced by "the big three". There are several manufacturers who do not fall into this realm (although some do share manufacturing with the big three). So we have a lot of brands all made by the same companies and quality is defined by the formula holder. So let's say TDK, which has not made CD-R media in some time and is now just a name owned by Imation (at least in the CD and DVD recordable world...they are manufacturing recordable Blu-ray). Imation specifies how the product is to be made. Generally the quality is good when it's based on a known standard but there are many ways that this can become an issue. What becomes of the rejects from manufacturing?
Simple: they are sold as generic or sold to the highest bidder who then turns around and sells it to unsuspecting customers. Sometimes the grade B product is OK and sometimes it's really bad. Inconsistent and from the start a sub-standard disc. Considering it costs .10 to manufacture a recordable CD (I admit that the big three have been dumping at .09 and why they have not made any profit in some time) it would very suspect to be able to purchase shiny silver recordable CDs in the .10-.13 range at a retail level. Unless it's grade B or C. Garbage in, Garbage out. Put a printable surface on it, adds a penny to five cents depending on the quality of the print surface. Now one other issue putting quality aside is that CD recordable media is all under patents. Philips is the major stake holder as well as Taiyo Yuden. There are others too. Royalties have to be paid and most manufacturers pay the royalty except for several Taiwan companies that have been disputing the royalty as unfair because that would mean they would have to compete with other manufacturers who actually pay the royalties. They pay sometimes and other times they don't. Lately they have not so we see a lot of that media drying up. That is not to say that some still slips into the U.S. but the product does not have royalties paid and is a liability to all that sell it and buy it. I remember when several very large "resellers" were fined and several smaller resellers were put out of business when Philips got serious the last time.
That is the real reason why we pay more for "legal" product and less for product that violate US and international patent laws. Again quality aside. Now let's look at the components of a recordable CD so we understand the economics.
The polycarbonate substrate (the plastic disc without anything on it): Optical grade, Usually virgin poly. Of course toss some recycled plastic in and you have a cheaper disc. How thick is the disc? hey look I can make it half the thickness of the standard and I have saved money!
Next comes the organic dye layer. This is the photosensitive layer (sensitive to red laser light) that some people refer to as "burning". This layer when exposed to the correct wave length of light produces a darker spot, imitating a pit that is pressed into a CD-ROM disc. Less dye less dark and then the issue of dye stability (that's what makes or breaks you being able to read a disc 2 weeks from today).
Next comes the reflective layer. This is the "silver" or gold coating that makes it easier (or possible) to read the disc. If the layer is too thin then we start to have issues. This is an engineered spec. balancing readability and economy. As with all manufacturing when economy out ways quality then we have junk (or a store with a lot of smiley faces around...not naming any names).
The possible final coating is lacquer on a shiny silver disc or an additional layer for an inkjet printable surface. Some manufacturers actually put a scratch resistant surface between the lacquer and printable surface or just the scratch resistant surface on the recordable CD-R. This is a step for quality as the most vulnerable part of a CD-R is it's top surface, not the recording side which is the plastic substrate. A scratch into the top surface can destroy a disc.
The higher the standard the better quality the disc is in multiple points. If what you are recording is garbage then by all means use garbage media. Trying to save a penny or two is like buying a retread tire.
There certainly are deals out in retail land for CD recordable media. Understanding what is a deal and what is garbage media is the key to any decision to purchase. If you purchase by price alone then you may be in for a rude awakening one day when you insert your favorite recordable CD (always the one you can't replace) and it skips, or just errors out. If you are like me I store my travel CD discs in the car which goes from zero degrees fahrenheit in the winter to 120 degrees in the summer. I ...
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