Tips For CD Duplication Side Business

The process of CD duplication has arrived in a very big way.  Teenagers these days are using their CD burners to rip MP3s from their favorite artists and bands.  Companies choose to use CD duplication to make backups of their software and important documents.

Federal agencies on the other hand, are scrambling to define and interpret intellectual piracy and copyright laws as they relate to CD duplication and the industry of music as a whole.  The movie industry is also seeking how they can profit from using CD duplication.  With so much attention being focused on CD duplication, now is the ideal time to turn your home CD duplication hardware into a very profitable side business.

Believe it or not, you may already have everything you need to get your CD duplication process going in the right direction.  All you need to get your business started is a computer, CD burner, CD duplication software, and a few blank CD-R disks. Contrary to what you may think, its that easy to get going.

If you don't have a computer or a CD burner, you really shouldn't worry, as purchasing a CD duplication device is actually very affordable.  The cost of stand alone CD duplication software has reduced quite a bit over the years. 

Almost all home computers come with internal CD duplication hardware (CD burners) and some sort of duplication software as well.  CD duplication media, such as blank CD-R and CD-RW are very low in price and can be purchased at almost all retail stores.

The market for your CD duplication service or company is going to local bands and musicians as well as small businesses.  Local up and coming bands are often too busy perfecting their sound to deal with the tedious and time consuming task of duplicating CDs for their gigs.  They also lack the money to order CDs from the big time CD duplication companies as well.

The smaller businesses are pretty much the same, as they are almost always unable to financially justify having a technical or computer staff to handle the backup and data storage aspects of their company.  Many times, they will end up forgoing needed data backups simply because they forget all about it.

You can however, solve these common gaps, provide needed service, and earn some nice side money by starting your own duplication service that caters to these types of clients.  By offering a reasonable price, fast rate of delivery, and a quality product, you'll get many repeat customers and a side business that will keep busy for as long as you want it.

Essentials Of CDR

The simple rule of thumb is that whatever you have stored as a file on any other storage medium can also be stored as a file on a CD-ROM.  To the recorder, a file is a file, and an ISO doesn't care whether or not the file contains pictures, text, or even audio sound. 

There are a few special cases, as to where you would want to record a file to a CD in a special type of format.  The most obvious here is CD-DA audio.  If you wanted to record an audio file to a CD so that you could play it back on your home stereo, you would need to write a CD-DA (or Digital Audio) disk.

When you copy data to a CD, you need to ensure that your data doesn't exceed the capacity of the CD that you will be recording to.  Due to the audio requirements of CDs, the amount of information a CD can hold is measured in minutes/seconds/sectors. Each second can contain 75 sectors, each of which are capable of holding 2,048 bytes of Mode 1 user data. 

By using the CD Size command in the edit menu, you can set the capacity of the set you wish to produce, which will help you to prevent exceeding it.  The status bar will show you how much space you have used, how much remains free, and the percentage of each one.

Even though this may sound a bit confusing at first, keep in mind that it may take some time if you are new to computers.  Even though copying a CD is quite easy, knowing the limits and how things work is a bit more complex.  Give it some time, and you'll be copying files to CD like the pros do it.

Factors In CD Duplication

The process of writing data to a recordable CD can be a complex process, as it demands a lot from both hardware and software programs.  Much of this complexity is hidden from the user by the program, although you should be aware of these factors.

Data
The total amount of data you are writing is much less important than whether or not it contains large or several small files.  If there are a lot of small files, the system may have problems with locating and opening the files quickly enough to send them smoothly to the CD recording drive.

The computer
Any interruption that may occur is fatal to CD duplication, so you should ensure that your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT don't load any TSR utilities which may interrupt operations.  Screen savers, alarms and reminders, or incoming faxes may also kill disc writing.  You should also turn off network sharing so no one will access the files that you are trying to write, as this could also kill your disc recording.

Hard Disk Speed
To write an image to the CD, the hard disk from which you are writing must have a transfer rate that is fast enough to keep the memory buffer full in the CD recorder.  This normally means an average hard disk access time of 19 MS or better.

Defrag
If your hard drive has to search everywhere over a fragmented hard drive for the data to be written, it can cause the operation to slow down or even cause a fatal error.  Therefore, always be sure to fragment your hard disk drive.

Recording speed
Most new CD recorders and even some older ones, are capable of writing at two (sometimes even four) times the standard playback.  It should be possible for you to select the speed; as even though fast recording is a time saver, it can also cause some bad situations.

When you copy an ISO (image file) from the hard disk to a CD, the speed is rarely a problem as the image is already one large file in which the files and structures are already in order and divided into CD-ROM sectors. 

When you write from a virtual image, things can get a bit trickier.  In order to copy to CD, the program must consult with the database to find where each file should go in the image and where it is actually stored on the hard disk drive.

Then, it must open the file, divide it into CD-ROM sectors, at the same time sending the data in a smooth continuous stream to the recorder.  Locating and opening the file is a bit more time consuming, as writing is more difficult if you have a lot of small files.

Differences Between CD DVD Media

Even though both CD and DVD disks have the same media size and shape, the things they have in common ends there.  There are many different things between the two, such as what they hold and how much they hold. 

Data pits and lasers
A disc has microscopic grooves that will move along in a spiral around the disc.  CDs and DVDs both have these grooves, with laser breams applied to scan these very grooves.

As you may know, digital information is represented in ones and zeroes.  Inside of these discs, very tiny reflective bumps known as lands and non reflective holes known as pits, which can be found beside the grooves, reflect both the ones and the zeroes of digital information.

By reducing the wave length of the laser to 625mm or more infrared light, DVD technology has managed to write in smaller pits when compared to the standard technology of CD.  This will allow for a greater amount of data per track on the DVD.  The minimum length allowed for a pit in a single layer DVD-R is .4 micron, which is obviously more than the .0834 micron that a CD offers.

The tracks of a DVD are narrower as well, which allows for more tracks per disc, which also translates into more capacity than a CD.  The avaerage single layer DVD holds 4.5 GB of data, while a CD holds a mere 700 MB.

Layers
As stated above, a DVD has smaller pits and the lasers need to focus on them.  This is actually achieved by using a thinner plastic substrate than in a CD, which means that the laser needs to pass through a thinner layer, with less depth to reach the pits.  It's this reduction in thickness that's responsible for the discs that were only 0.6mm thickness - which is half that of a CD.

Data access speed
DVDs will access data at a much faster rate than a CD can.  The average 32X CD-ROM drive reads data at 4MB a second, while a 1X DVD drive reads at 1.38MB a second.  This is even faster than an 8X CD drive.

Universal data format
The recording formats of CDs and DVDs are quite different, as DVDs use UDF, or the Universal Data Format.  This format allows data, video, audio, or even a combination of all three to be stored in a single file structure.  The advantage to this is any file can be accessed by any drive, computer, or even consumer video. CDs on the other hand aren't compatible with this format. 

Intro To CD Mastering

Even though many assume that the mixing of the seperate audio tracks is the final step, a recording should always be mastered well in order to sound great.  CD mastering is the final chance for creative input when you create a compact disc. After the discs has been mastered, it can be printed, reproduced, and then sold.

The process of mastering a CD actually involves several steps.  The first step is putting the songs, or tracks at this point in the correct order.  The length of time between the songs is also adjusted, along with the editing of the songs.  Any unlisted or secret songs on the CD are normally added at this point as well.

There are several ways that you can go about mastering a CD.  First of all, the mix can be sent to a professional CD mastering engineer, which is what professional musicians normally decide to do.

The mastering engineers will often work in their own mastering facilities, which are very different from standard studios, in the fact that they have much less gear and are designed for the best possible playback of the mix as possible in order to fix anything that's wrong. 

Aside from mastering engineers, CDs can also be mastered at home using computer software. This option is normally more realistic for unsigned artists or musicians who are just starting out with their music.  Depending on the software quality and skill of the individual doing the mastering, the CD may turn out perfect or it may sound very unprofessional.

You can also refer to online CD mastering as another option. Cds that are mastered online can be great, as instead of sending a mix to a mastering engineer, the mix is instead sent via the Internet.  To do this, you'll need a high speed Internet connection.

The cheapest way to go about mastering a CD is with free mastering.  Artists and musicians may choose to use free mastering programs with demos or other earlier recordings that artists will use to send to major record labels to generate some interest in their music.

The major differences with a professional CD and an amateur recording is normally found in the mastering.  Every song that you hear played on the radio is thoroughly mastered in order to sound better.

While you can master using free programs or your computer, a professional CD mastering engineer is normally the best way to do business if your band is looking to make a profit from your music.

Music CD-R And Data CD-R

People who are new to computers and duplication, will sometimes confuse CD-R music media with CD-R data media.  While confusing them is easy to do, the two are different indeed.  Even if you have some experience with computers, confusing them is very easy to do.

As you may or may not know, there are differences between music CD-R and data CD-R disks. The obvious difference is, of course, the name.  With one named CD-R music and one named CD-R data, you
know there has to be some type of difference between the two.

What's known is that there are indeed technical differences in what is embedded in blank music CDs when compared to blank data CDs.  These differences center upon bytes that are within the sub channels of the blank music disks. 

This doesn't affect the quality, as both audio and data can be duplicated onto both music CD-R disks and data CD-R disks.  You can burn data onto music CD-R, and music onto data CD-R media without any problems.  Keep in mind, whether or not you get data on a music CD-R will depend on what type of hardware you use to duplicate the CD.

If you plan to use a PC to do all of your burning, it won't matter.  A PC doesn't differentiate between music CD-R and data CD-R.  PCs will see a blank media CD and duplicate information on it that pertains to the settings you have outlined in the software you plan to use to burn the CD.

If you plan to use a seperate CD burner, it may or may not let you burn data or music on a generic blank or data CD-R.  Some hardware are funny like that, as they only want you to use blank media with well known brand names that they have approved of.

If you plan to do most of your CD duplication on a computer, it really doesn't matter which type of blank CD-R you use.  They will both work fine in most cases when you store either music or data.  When storing data, you have a limit of 700 MB, while music will have a limit of a little over an hour of tunes.

For your duplication needs, computers are the ideal way to copy media. You can use equipment outside of a computer and CD burner, although you'll need to check the operations manual and see what they recommend for media.  If you have a computer or access to one, it can do wonders in the areas of music and data CD-R duplication.

Musicians And CD Duplication

These days, technology is always available for any inspiring musician to record, create, and even duplicate CDs.  The duplication of CDs will involve CD-R media.  CD-R media prices have dropped a lot over the last several years, making them affordable for anyone who wants to use them.

If your band is ready to start selling CDs, your best option may be to have your CDs replicated. Replicated CDs are the same CDs that you'll find in music stores by major label artists.  They all have excellent artwork printed on the CD inserts, nice tray card inserts, screened art on the CD, and they are even shrink wrapped.

The retail CDs that you buy aren't duplicated, they are replicated.  This means that an exact replica of your master CD has been stamped out on all of the other CDs.  If you are serious about selling your music for profit, replication is the way to go.

The fact is, most stores simply won't sell duplicated CDs. Duplicated CDs can be against the law, which is the main reason retail stores simply won't carry them.  Replicated CDs let the stores know that the CD is legit, and they will almost always carry those CDs.

For musicians and inspiring bands, CD duplication can tend to be a bit more expensive than that of replication.  To duplicate CDs, you need a computer with a CD burner, your CD-R media, cases, and a lot of man hours.

With CD replication, you can get many more copies, professional artwork, a barcode for inventory, and cases included.  Replication is obviously to expensive for those looking to simply back up pictures and data on a personal computer, although the prices are just right for musicians looking to make profit off of their CDs.