CD Duplicator/Printer Q's

G

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Hi All,

Its time to spring for a CD Printer/Duplicator for runs of 100
or less CD's to be used to distribute CD's to our broadcast partners.
Were on a budget of 3000-4000$ for this item.

So far the two that seem to be popular are the products from
Microboards (DX-2 and Rimage) and the Primera (Bravo Pro).

http://www.microboards.com/new/article.php?story=20050103101232146
http://www.primera.com/bravopro_disc_publisher.html

These models on the surface seem to do about what we need, but
I have was hoping for some input from RAP.

Anyone using any of the above units or can direct me to other decent
models to look at? Any horror stories or suggestions as to things
to look into or stay away from?

Were a small radio show currently supporting about 30 radio
stations across the southwest. We need to supply our weekly
broadcast CD's to about 20 of these currently. We are looking
at distribution through places like Content Depot but currently
still send a lot of stuff out on CD.
We have promotional mailings and other media sent out on CD each
month as well.

Thanks
Chip Borton
 

Troy

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Stay away from Microboards and Primera they are both problematic.Go for a
new Rimage 2000i or a used Rimage protege with thermal prism printer.The
thermal printer is way better than inkjet printers.We sometimes sell used
Rimage equipment.I have a unit in now but its sold.If you are interested in
used then send me an email as I may come accross something.I use rimage
equipment myself and know it well.


Good luck
Troy



Chip Borton <cobiashimew@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:C6-dnQNgYJZOpcLfRVn-hw@comcast.com...
> Hi All,
>
> Its time to spring for a CD Printer/Duplicator for runs of 100
> or less CD's to be used to distribute CD's to our broadcast partners.
> Were on a budget of 3000-4000$ for this item.
>
> So far the two that seem to be popular are the products from
> Microboards (DX-2 and Rimage) and the Primera (Bravo Pro).
>
> http://www.microboards.com/new/article.php?story=20050103101232146
> http://www.primera.com/bravopro_disc_publisher.html
>
> These models on the surface seem to do about what we need, but
> I have was hoping for some input from RAP.
>
> Anyone using any of the above units or can direct me to other decent
> models to look at? Any horror stories or suggestions as to things
> to look into or stay away from?
>
> Were a small radio show currently supporting about 30 radio
> stations across the southwest. We need to supply our weekly
> broadcast CD's to about 20 of these currently. We are looking
> at distribution through places like Content Depot but currently
> still send a lot of stuff out on CD.
> We have promotional mailings and other media sent out on CD each
> month as well.
>
> Thanks
> Chip Borton
 

Excalibur

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Eh, I'll take that with a grain of salt. I've run thousands of discs
through my refurb Primera unit, with only one problem. The CD drawer
started to droop, so I filed the front bezel of the drawer off to keep it
from snagging on the reject chute. Other than that, I agree with Troy. If
photo quality art isn't a concern, go monochrome thermal for the printer.


"Troy" <alternate-root@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:uPN7e.1022944$8l.464491@pd7tw1no...
> Stay away from Microboards and Primera they are both problematic.Go for a
> new Rimage 2000i or a used Rimage protege with thermal prism printer.The
> thermal printer is way better than inkjet printers.We sometimes sell used
> Rimage equipment.I have a unit in now but its sold.If you are interested
in
> used then send me an email as I may come accross something.I use rimage
> equipment myself and know it well.
>
>
> Good luck
> Troy
>
>
>
> Chip Borton <cobiashimew@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:C6-dnQNgYJZOpcLfRVn-hw@comcast.com...
> > Hi All,
> >
> > Its time to spring for a CD Printer/Duplicator for runs of 100
> > or less CD's to be used to distribute CD's to our broadcast partners.
> > Were on a budget of 3000-4000$ for this item.
> >
> > So far the two that seem to be popular are the products from
> > Microboards (DX-2 and Rimage) and the Primera (Bravo Pro).
> >
> > http://www.microboards.com/new/article.php?story=20050103101232146
> > http://www.primera.com/bravopro_disc_publisher.html
> >
> > These models on the surface seem to do about what we need, but
> > I have was hoping for some input from RAP.
> >
> > Anyone using any of the above units or can direct me to other decent
> > models to look at? Any horror stories or suggestions as to things
> > to look into or stay away from?
> >
> > Were a small radio show currently supporting about 30 radio
> > stations across the southwest. We need to supply our weekly
> > broadcast CD's to about 20 of these currently. We are looking
> > at distribution through places like Content Depot but currently
> > still send a lot of stuff out on CD.
> > We have promotional mailings and other media sent out on CD each
> > month as well.
> >
> > Thanks
> > Chip Borton
>
>
 
G

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Chip Borton wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Its time to spring for a CD Printer/Duplicator for runs of 100
> or less CD's to be used to distribute CD's to our broadcast
partners.
> Were on a budget of 3000-4000$ for this item.

I've done runs of 300 CDs with a few PCs with burners, and a Casio
thermal transfer printer. Out-of-pocket costs were under $100.
 
G

Guest

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Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Hi Arny,

For budget situations, there's another 'trick'. Buy 4-5 burners and put
them in usb2/fw enclosures and use the 'use multiple recorders'
function in Nero... It's not a 'pro' solution but makes things much
quicker for small projects!

Regards,

Evangelos

%
Evangelos Himonides
IoE, University of London
tel: +44 2076126599
fax: +44 2076126741
"Allas to those who never sing but die with all their music in them..."



Oliver Wendell Holmes


%
 
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"Arny Krueger" wrote ...
> Chip Borton wrote:
>> Its time to spring for a CD Printer/Duplicator for runs of 100
>> or less CD's to be used to distribute CD's to our broadcast
>> partners.
>> Were on a budget of 3000-4000$ for this item.
>
> I've done runs of 300 CDs with a few PCs with burners, and a Casio
> thermal transfer printer. Out-of-pocket costs were under $100.

You can buy one of those automated machines that
burns and prints a whole stack of discs, within your
budget. But I agree with Arny that for low volume it
doesn't seem cost-effective.
 
G

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Arny Krueger wrote:

> I've done runs of 300 CDs with a few PCs with burners, and a Casio
> thermal transfer printer. Out-of-pocket costs were under $100.


Yep, thats what were doing now and its killing us.
The man-hours of burning/printing/testing coupled
with the inability to use the PC's for anything else
during that process is a problem.
Were also doing the CD's every two or three weeks
as an ongoing process so it really adds up.
 
G

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Chip Borton wrote:
> Arny Krueger wrote:
>
>> I've done runs of 300 CDs with a few PCs with burners, and a Casio
>> thermal transfer printer. Out-of-pocket costs were under $100.

> Yep, thats what were doing now and its killing us.
> The man-hours of burning/printing/testing coupled
> with the inability to use the PC's for anything else
> during that process is a problem.
> Were also doing the CD's every two or three weeks
> as an ongoing process so it really adds up.

Yeah after my post I thought about doing this every week. It seems
like the cost of at least an off-the-shelf disc duplicator is a slam
dunk.

Dupping full discs still runs about 6 minutes per batch. On a standard
PC, a batch is just one disc. I don't know how full your discs are.

Printing on a low-cost thermal transfer printer seems to take me about
a minute per disc. I could see just a multi-disc duplicator as being a
wonderful first step.
 
G

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Solid advice!
For a silly reason I had 'laptops' in mind... Yes, that is even more
economical.

best regards,

Evangelos
 

Troy

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The only problem with doing it this way is that quality control from disc to
disc will be different.Professional duplicators do a way better job.CDs will
be bit for bit accurate and each CD can be tested automatically in a
duplicator.



Arny Krueger <arnyk@hotpop.com> wrote in message
news:L_CdnaRLscj2cf3fRVn-pg@comcast.com...
> Chip Borton wrote:
> > Hi All,
> >
> > Its time to spring for a CD Printer/Duplicator for runs of 100
> > or less CD's to be used to distribute CD's to our broadcast
> partners.
> > Were on a budget of 3000-4000$ for this item.
>
> I've done runs of 300 CDs with a few PCs with burners, and a Casio
> thermal transfer printer. Out-of-pocket costs were under $100.
>
>
 
G

Guest

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"Troy" wrote ...
> The only problem with doing it this way is that quality
> control from disc to disc will be different.

Huh? It is *digital*! Perhaps you need to expand on your
theory.
 

Troy

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Its not a theory at all.When you use a bunch of computers to do burning each
copy will be slightly different then the one before it.Not in sound quality
but the quality of the burn.Computers have things going on in the background
that can cause one CD to have a slight glitch during burning while the next
one is perfect and so on.Duplicators like rimage will make sure each burn is
bit for bit or reject it.




Richard Crowley <rcrowley7@xprt.net> wrote in message
news:1162ku7njnlrfcb@corp.supernews.com...
> "Troy" wrote ...
> > The only problem with doing it this way is that quality
> > control from disc to disc will be different.
>
> Huh? It is *digital*! Perhaps you need to expand on your
> theory.
 
G

Guest

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"Troy" wrote ...
> Its not a theory at all.When you use a bunch of computers to do
> burning each
> copy will be slightly different then the one before it.Not in sound
> quality
> but the quality of the burn.Computers have things going on in the
> background
> that can cause one CD to have a slight glitch during burning while the
> next
> one is perfect and so on.Duplicators like rimage will make sure each
> burn is
> bit for bit or reject it.

And duplicators use the same drives as computers do.
The buffers in the drives remove any timing variables
caused by the computer servicing other processes. (See
"Buffer Protection" aka. "Burn Proof", et.al.)
Lastly, if you are worried about having bit-perfect copies
use software that goes back and verifies each copy (which
is something that most duplicators do NOT do.)
 
G

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Troy wrote:
> Its not a theory at all.When you use a bunch of computers to do
> burning each copy will be slightly different then the one before
> it.

Might happen, but definately not the rule.

>Not in sound quality but the quality of the burn.

Might happen, but definately not the rule.

> Computers have
> things going on in the background that can cause one CD to have a
> slight glitch during burning while the next one is perfect and so
> on.

The sky might fall during the burn and we'll all be wasted. Computer
burning is not all that flakey. In fact, I'd probably pick a computer
burn over a stand-alone CD-R burn at this point, based on my
real-world experiences.

>Duplicators like rimage will make sure each burn is bit for bit or
reject it.

Now that I can agree with. You can also QC discs for bit-accuracy
using the file comparison facilities in EAC or CDEX.
 
G

Guest

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Evangelos Himonides wrote:
> For budget situations, there's another 'trick'. Buy 4-5 burners and put
> them in usb2/fw enclosures and use the 'use multiple recorders'
> function in Nero...

Or if you want to go even cheaper, you can buy name brand internal
burners for $30 or less shipped from newegg.com. You should be
able to put 3 of them in virtually any computer that has a single
hard drive, or buy an extra IDE controller card and put 4 or more.
Bump the memory up to 1 GB and the entire CD image can be held in
RAM, so no need to access the hard drive, and you should be able
to burn several simultaneously without problems.

If you already have 1 burner and 512MB of RAM, total cost to upgrade
to 3 burners and 1 GB of RAM should be about $100.

- Logan
 

Troy

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I burn thousands of CDs a month and I am talking from experience.I sure
would not want to pay out good money for CDs knowing they were burned with
PCs.I do work for people all the time that try and do what you do and have
nothing but problems with clients.They come to me and not one
problem......this should tell you something.



Arny Krueger <arnyk@hotpop.com> wrote in message
news:Xt2dneGf9YaIw_zfRVn-rQ@comcast.com...
> Troy wrote:
> > Its not a theory at all.When you use a bunch of computers to do
> > burning each copy will be slightly different then the one before
> > it.
>
> Might happen, but definately not the rule.
>
> >Not in sound quality but the quality of the burn.
>
> Might happen, but definately not the rule.
>
> > Computers have
> > things going on in the background that can cause one CD to have a
> > slight glitch during burning while the next one is perfect and so
> > on.
>
> The sky might fall during the burn and we'll all be wasted. Computer
> burning is not all that flakey. In fact, I'd probably pick a computer
> burn over a stand-alone CD-R burn at this point, based on my
> real-world experiences.
>
> >Duplicators like rimage will make sure each burn is bit for bit or
> reject it.
>
> Now that I can agree with. You can also QC discs for bit-accuracy
> using the file comparison facilities in EAC or CDEX.
>
>
 

Troy

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First of all Buffer Protection" aka. "Burn Proof", et.al......can be your
worst enemy when producing large amounts of CDs.Slowing the burn speed and
speeding up again produces un even burning thus causing problems in reading
the CD.If your burnproof is kicking in ......you got problems.Duplication
systems do use the same drives as computers but high end duplicators use
special firmware for the best results.A computer burner is designed as a one
off and high end duplicator is capable of many thousands of a CD.

Who is going to stand there burning 300+ CDs one by one loading by hand and
check each CD with software for bit for bit accuracy??

and yes duplicators do have this option.You can choose to check every cd or
every 2nd one or every 3rd one or set it how you want.I don't know where you
get you info that it "is something that most duplicators do NOT do"

This shows your experience with professional duplication equipment.Stick to
what you know.



Richard Crowley <rcrowley7@xprt.net> wrote in message
news:1162n6epe4i7nd8@corp.supernews.com...
> "Troy" wrote ...
> > Its not a theory at all.When you use a bunch of computers to do
> > burning each
> > copy will be slightly different then the one before it.Not in sound
> > quality
> > but the quality of the burn.Computers have things going on in the
> > background
> > that can cause one CD to have a slight glitch during burning while the
> > next
> > one is perfect and so on.Duplicators like rimage will make sure each
> > burn is
> > bit for bit or reject it.
>
> And duplicators use the same drives as computers do.
> The buffers in the drives remove any timing variables
> caused by the computer servicing other processes. (See
> "Buffer Protection" aka. "Burn Proof", et.al.)
> Lastly, if you are worried about having bit-perfect copies
> use software that goes back and verifies each copy (which
> is something that most duplicators do NOT do.)
>
 
G

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"Troy" wrote...
> This shows your experience with professional duplication
> equipment. Stick to what you know.

Apparently this "Troy" person actually duplicates all the
CDs on our planet. All those others must just be storefronts
that send him the business.
 
G

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"Troy" wrote ...
> Apparently I don't give misinformation like you.I know
> the equipment well,its my business to know it well.As
> for you .....you are the one that jumped in and started
> talking stuff you have no idea about.

Whereas you appearently speak for the entire CD
duplication industry. I wasn't aware that we had such
high-level industry representation. I was also unaware
that there was such uniformity in the industry that you
could confidently speak for all of them. My mistake.
(But plonk anyway.)
 

mark

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Chip Borton wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Its time to spring for a CD Printer/Duplicator for runs of 100
> or less CD's to be used to distribute CD's to our broadcast partners.
> Were on a budget of 3000-4000$ for this item.

I have a primera composer XL at work. Once I got the physical alignment
correct between the devices, it works just about flawlessly. I'll set a
batch of 100 to go overnight with about 95% confidence it will be done
in the morning. The only time that is an issue is when I need 100%
confidence... and for that, I set my alarm and Timbuktu in to the
computer which is at my work to double check that it's still going strong.

If I were you, I'd get the version that has two burning drives, and set
it up to verify every single disc. That way, you can be confident that
all copies will be good. I have the single driver version, and
verifying every one is too slow... so I have it set up to verify every 3
copies, and I've had only maybe two returns at this point.

Printing works pretty well with the Signature Pro printer I have. Ink
costs are a bit high, but all in all I'm happy with it.

I recently had a rush job that I turned around, just 300 CDs but very
quick turnaround. My company balked at the $1500+ it would have cost to
outsource, so I did it in-house and it all worked fine.

Any questions, feelf ree to email me.