So, you have a cd or dvd finished and your next step in the process is mass producing. Which route do you take? Duplication or replication. Questions to as are, how many discs do you have? Are you planning on a re-order or is this a one time. Now let's get into the tough part. Duplication is a process where discs are "burned" (laser embedding, rearranging the tracks and sectors of a disc). In a more basic case the Cdr's are the same as what you can purchase in a store. There are also sticky labels that you can put on your disc. The problem arises when heat elements, such as the inside of a car cause the label to bubble and in some cases peel away. So you put this in yhour player and leave paper inside of the drive sometimes leaving permanent damage. Or the player could just reject the disk. Then, there are printable discs. They have a low price and an exellent quality, but what happens if you drop someting on the disc, you put it under or use a wet wipe to wipe your "spill" off and the ink comes off right along with it. You can't have that. Your co-workers may get a good laugh out of it but it won't be so funny to you. The last and most preferred although expensive is hydro Shield technology discs. This technology was invented by Taiyo Yuden the inventor of the CDR. These are inkjet discs except the disc is coated with a smooth glossy coating that makes it water proof and smudge proof. Excellent choice for something that needs to be preserved or distributed to customers. Duplication orders since the ease of production can be ordered in any quantity.
The next option would be disc replication also called silkcreening for it's similarity to silkscreen printing. Disc replication is where a glass master is used to actually press the disk image onto multiple copies. The backfall of replication is most companies won't replicate for quantities under 1000. Because it is a hard set up procedure. But depending on the quantities this might be an option for you. An advantage would be that set up only occurs once and as long as the content of the disk is the same, the glass master can be reused. The quality is excellent. Just like silkscreen printing the disc would be aligned and each color would be pressed on individually. All the discs that you see in larger retailers, CD, DVD's and Software are replicated discs. So take your pick, and remember the main consideration is the quantity that you need and the preservability of the disc.
