SUMMARY: CD Production Advice

[ckime <ckime -at- PEERLOGIC -dot- COM>]

     Earlier in the week I requested ideas, tips, or research pointers for
     producing low volumes of professional-looking, CD-ROMs. That's a big
     request, but many TECWR-Lrs came through to share their experiences and
     information. A Texas-sized (that means huge) thanks to the many folks
     who responded: Amy Lattof, Arlen Walker, Beth Agnew, Beth Friedman,
     Brad Creager, Liz Schulz, Marge Packman, Matt Ion, Mike Donaghue,
     Nanette Luoma Andrusiak, Reid Rogers, Richard Rogers, Rita Johnson,
     Stephen Riley, Timothy McNair, Wendy Uren, and Bill Newkirk. An
     abundance of info was provided as you can tell from the length of this
     "summary"! Please, no flames on the number of bulleted items or
     formatting...it's late and this is among friends, right? ;)

     The major approaches seem to be:

     o  Buy equipment to print image, burn contents, and/or duplicate
     in-house. (Cost about $70-$20,000 for equipment depending on
     combinations)
     o  Have vendor silk-screen image on blank RCDs and then burn contents
     in-house as needed. Possibly do "generic" silk screen and have
     in-house printer to add product/version-specific info.
     o  Have vendor silk-screen image and burn contents. (Minimum seems to
     be about 250 quantity and around $700 for this approach.)

     Here's more detail from the responses I received:

     o  The graphic is burned on the top and the data on the bottom, so you
     can silk-screen the graphic and burn the contents separately and the
     order doesn't matter. This could help get economy of scale if the
     graphic can be fairly generic (perhaps adding a label or using the
     RIMAGE CD printer for specific info), such as to serve for multiple
     products and/or multiple releases. With this scenario could send out
     for quantity silk-screening and then burn in-house as needed.

     o  For in-house printing of an image on CD, there seem to be two
     printers currently available:
        - Signature CD Color Printer by Fargo Electronics (www.fargo.com;
     1-800-205-5852) for about $1500, with cartidges about $52 (prints
     about 200 CDs). Requires textured CDs. Fargo supplies white textured
     CDs that make the image dry evenly, smear proof, and waterproof. Image
     can be printed from their bundled software (not recommended highly),
     ADOBE (highly recommended), or other graphic sw packages. It's a full
     color ink jet printer, so the images are close to perfect but not
     quite. 600x300 dpi. Process takes a couple of minutes per CD and must
     be done one at a time.
        - RIMAGE CD Printer (www.rimage.com; 1-800-445-8288), about 2x cost
     of Fargo's. Uses standard silver media. Sharp image. Burns a single
     color ribbon-ink on a CD (looks like silk-screened); limited color
     options (extra colors by multi pass with different ribbons; able to do
     a multiple of CDs hands free; fast (5-10 sec).

     o  Potential concerns with the "burn on demand" approach:
        -  it requires tight version control to ensure that you put exactly
     the same software on each of the CDs
        -  it can take up a lot of someone's time to create the CDs

     o  Suggested vendors for pre-printing and/or who deal with low
     quanties (one responder's price breakdown was about $700 for 75 CDRs
     with 3-color silk screen and no data, and about the same for 250 fully
     pressed with silk screen and data!):

     DataDisc
     www.datadisc.com
     703-331-220
     Will produce full silk-screen art on blank CDs that you can then burn
     on demand. Runs as low as 10 CDs. Standard turnaround 4-5 days.

     Memory Chips
     www.memorychips.com
     800-359-6921
     Fully pressed. Minimum runs of 250.

     American Pro-Digital (APD)
     P.O. Box 550
     Rooseveltown, NY 13683-0550
     800.273.3472
     Min order of 3!, For 1-, 2-, or 3-color, setup charge of $200 and
     $3.50 per RCD, shrink-wrapped in a jewel case.

     D.M. Graphics
     613 Congress Park Dr.
     Centerville, Ohio 45459
     800.316.5175
     http://www.dmgcdr5.com/

     Corporate Disk Company
     1226 Michael Drive
     Wood Dale, IL 60191
     800.634.3475

     American Disc Corporation
     800.840.DISC

     Europadisk, Ltd.
     75 Varick St.
     New York, NY 10013
     800.455.9555

     OPTI-MAG, Inc.
     800.795.2384

     Mid Atlantic Media
     P.O. Box 11006
     Wilmington, DE 19850
     302.325.3613

     Software Completions
     919-783-8471
     Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
     about $15.00 service charge and $2.00/CD to print image

     o The pre-printing route has the same limitations as for manufactured
     CDs: min line width of .5pt, min letter size of 4pt, max line screen
     of 1001pi--85 recommended, etc.

     o  Additional justification of a CD burner is to use it for archiving
     data on a regular basis (this organization previously archived to
     tape, which was difficult to retrieve at the desktop).

     o  For very small quantities (35-50), consider buying a duplicating
     machine for $4,000-20,000.

     o  The silver CDs aren't built for short run stamping.

     o  The upcoming DVD machines may not be able to read CD-Rs; should be
     backward compatible but currently no machines available to know for sure.

     o  Comments about the stick-on label approach:
        - Can get a CD Stomper for about $70.
        - Look tacky unless you do 4-color.
        - Requires the gold disks or white textured disks.
        - Stick on labels can upset the balance and spin of the CD.
        - Paper labels eventually crinkle and bubble.
        - Can come off of gold surface CDs; TDK CDs with white blob on top
     have been successful.

     We are still conducting our feasibility study. If there are any
     exciting discoveries not mentioned in the above responses, I'll let
     the list know.

     Best regards,
     Carol Kime
     PeerLogic, Inc.
     Austin, Texas
     ckime -at- peerlogic -dot- com

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