CD DVD Duplication vs Replication DVD CD

What are the main differences between CD/DVD Duplication & Replication

1. Costs

Duplication is most cost effective up to 500 units. Replication is more cost effective OVER 1,000 units

2. Volumes

Duplication you can have as few as 1 copy, but to be practical Amstore's NZ min qty is 20. The Replication entry quantity is 300 but there is no maximum.

3. Price

Duplication doesn't have the economy of scale that Replication has but the set up costs for Duplication is much less.

4. Lead times

Duplication is a very fast service because the pre run setups are minimal compared to the several process's of the Replication process.

5. Manufacturing Method

The Duplication process is the burning of content to a blank Recordable disk. Replication requires several process's just to get to the disc printing stage: Glass Mastering, Stamper creation, Injection moulding from polycarbonate granules. These process's all take time.

Benefits of Duplication & Replication

DUPLICATION REPLICATION

MIN ORDER QTY 20 units 500 (300) units

MAX ORDER QTY around 2000 units (but flexible) none

APPROX LEAD TIME 1-3 working days 5-10 working days dependant on pricing

DISK PRINT UV Ink-Jet Screen Screen or Offset -Litho

Simply put; the Duplication is the process of UV printing the artwork on to the top of the disc and then copying (burning) the data/audio/video on to blank CD-R’s / DVD-R's. It only takes a few days to copy, print and pack the discs because the orders are usually much lower, the set ups are small and the process is quite quick. Any printed parts would be digitally printed on our Xerox 8000AP (as opposed to litho printed).

The Replication option is more cost effective on larger runs but it takes a lot longer. A Glass Master is created from your master and through a galvanic process, nickel Stampers are grown from the Glass. The Stamper is then loaded onto a replication line and CD/DVD copies are replicated by pressing the stamper into liquid polycarbonate that is injection moulded to the shape of the CD. Once the discs are pressed, metallised, lacquered and UV cured, they will be printed directly to the surface of the silver discs.

We can Off-set / Litho print and Silk screen print to the disc On-Body depending on the look of the design. Any printed parts (Booklets & Inlays, card wallets, Digi-packs) would be Litho printed as opposed to digitally printed as per the low volume Duplication runs.

Final Product comparison

The replication process is sometimes considered the more professional of the two techniques as Replicated discs are favoured for retail however in reality, but in practise is very little difference between a Replicated disc and a Duplicated disc from Amstore. Amstore recommends for Audio Albums and DVD Video it is preferable to Replicate if you are comfortable with the min qty of 300 and you have the time. If the Blank media used to copy the data is a low end option, then playability issues have been known where some older CD/DVD players have not been able to play the discs. This could be a mixed result of the player and the media. Amstore only use the highest quality, Grade 'A' blank media in our production process so we do not experience rejects.

All of this said, Replication can sometimes be done quicker and Duplication can sometimes take longer so please Contact us today and see how quickly we can turn your order around!