We are using Adobe Photoshop to demonstrate a way to setup your artwork on a cd, dvd, & blu-ray template. The same concept and directions can be used as a guideline for other templates on our site.

The following examples will show you how to setup your disc art so it is print/press ready.

1. Obtain the correct Template from our site.

 First Navigate to the Templates Page of our Site

The templates can be found on the templates page as shown in the picture.

Download the template to your computer. You can download the template by right clicking on the template link. Choose “save target as…”, or “save link as…”. For this example, we’ll be using the DVD/Blu-Ray/CD Duplication Color Disc Face template. You can apply this process to all of the templates.

2. Opening the template in Photoshop

When you open the template in Photoshop, the first thing you will see is a screen to setup the resolution and printing specifications. The main thing to check is the resolution is at 300dpi, and that the color scheme is CMYK. Hit OK to continue,

3. Laying out your Artwork

When the template is open you can start to layout the artwork of your cd/dvd/blu-ray design. It’s a good idea to keep the template as 1^st layer (Layer 1), this way you can see the outlines of the template.

As you layout your artwork, you should make sure the background is all the way to the outside bleed line. In the example below, We will apply a blue background to the disc. This has been filled in all the way to the outer edge and through the center.

The text, logos, and images should be placed within the inner margin of the template. This will make sure the final print does not get cut off in the print process. You can see in the example below that the text and artwork do not go outside of the inner margin.

The template needs to be “invisible” when you have completed the design. The first and simplest way is to UNCLICK the eye in the left box next to Layer 1, or your background layer. It is now invisible.

The second way is to drag the 1^st layer (LAYER 1) to the bottom. Now all the layers you have added are now above the original template layer. This will ensure that only the crop marks of the template show. The image below shows the layers window with the template layer now at the bottom.

4. Saving your artwork

We recommended that you save the file as a HIGH RES PDF. This will ensure that the fonts will stay as they are.    To do this go to File, Save As, Select – Photoshop PDF from the drop down list of file types. Save the pdf so you are able to make change, by making sure the box is checked next to “ Preserve Photoshop Editing Capabilities”.  You may also want to save it as a .psd file so you can make other edits in the future.

These instructions should be helpful in getting your CD/DVD and Blu-Ray art work ready for your next project!

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions at 1-866-210-8768 or email us at contact@dvdcopycat.com

We will now be focusing all of our manufacturing efforts on USB Flash Drives, DVD duplication and Replication, CD Duplication and Replication and Blu-ray Duplication and Replication services.  We could not be happier with the current progress of this considerable effort.

New to the site will be the ability to place an order online via e-commerce along with an additional 25% more products and many more pricing options and turn times.  If you have any questions about our transition to the new site, or have comments about the new look, please let us know.  We would love to hear from you.

There are a few distinctions between PAL DVDs and NTSC DVDs.

NTSC DVDs have a frame rate of 29.97 frames per second and have a screen resolutions of  720 X 480.  NTSC is the more widely used and accepted format for DVDs.

PAL DVDs have a frame rate of 25 frames per second and have a screen resolution of 720 X 576.  All PAL DVD players can also play NTSC DVDs, however, the converse is not true.  Most NTSC DVD players cannot play PAL DVDs.

It is for this reason that the best format choice to distribute your DVD project would be NTSC.

Most authoring platforms will author both NTSC and PAL DVDs, however, it is very difficult to convert one to the other once the format has been chosen.  The reasoning behind this is that the vertical resolution of an NTSC to PAL comparison is 480 to 576, so if conversion was to occur between the two formats, there would be some vertical squeezing or stretching of the video depending on which way the conversion went.  So you end up with people and objects that either look unusually tall or unusually short, or you will have to cut of some of the screen, all are un-natural looks.

So if you are deciding whether to create a project in PAL vs NTSC, your best bet is to shoot, edit and author all in the same format.  Mixing format, example: shooting in PAL and editing and authoring in NTSC will still result in a skewed perspective.

So know your format, your target audience, and choose accordingly.

Film Festivals:

Here is another area that we are seeing good influx of blu-ray requests.   It seems that more and more film festivals are requesting submissions on bluray.  At DVD Coypcat we are fielding many calls from clients who have hi-def source material that need to be converted to a Blu-ray Master then duplicated for distribution to film festivals.

Bluray Authoring Platforms:

Blu-ray authoring platforms are also becoming more robust and I have been seeing less and less frustration with BD master creation these days.  I personally have experienced a good deal of frustration with some Platforms over the past two years and have only recently had more regular success with some of the more up to date systems.

Archiving using Blu-ray Discs:

Here is another popular use for bluray discs.  Archiving everything from tens of thousands of family photos, to sensitive data for businesses.

All and all, we are projecting the first significant inroads for Blu-ray Duplication in 2011 and we expect to see this continue strongly through 2012 and 2013.

For more information, take a look at our Blu-ray Duplication and Services page for more information and pricing, or just give us a call at 1-866-210-8768.

DVD Masters:

The Basics :

DVD Masters need to be submitted as an authored DVD.  This means that if you have been through editing, you need to get your edited project on an authoring platform and create your menus, compression, and final DVD.  Some common authoring platforms are: DVD Studio Pro, iDVD, Sonic Scenarist, Nero, Adobe Encore.  If you are not sure that you have authored your DVD just give us a call and we should be able to determine the state of your project.

Once your project is complete and you have an authored master, in most circumstances we recommend that you submit a fully working DVD-R master that you have thoroughly watched, have checked all menu functionality and are completely satisfied with the quality of your final master.  Once we receive your master we guarantee to give you exact copies of your project back, so be sure you are happy with your master before you end up with 2000 discs you don’t like or cannot use.

Electronic Submission of DVD Master:

Some times we have clients that would like to save a day or two of snail mail and submit their DVD disc image master electronically.  We typically discourage this as in most circumstances we would charge to create the DVD master from a disc image, then, to insure the content and integrity of the master, would typically send that master disc back to our client for final approval on the master.  Ultimately this would result in longer approval time.  The best way to ensure we do a great job on your project is to submit a hard master that has been thoroughly checked for functionality and quality.

The only caveat to this method of master delivery is if you would like CSS copy protection on your DVD video.  In this circumstance, you will need to submit your master as either a DDP master or a DLT master.  You can read the ins and outs of applying DVD CSS encryption here on this blog post.

CD Masters:

CD Audio Master Basics :

For submitting CD Audio masters, the best standard to submit you master under is the “Red Book Audio Standard”.  Particularly when replicating your disc, if you want your audio to be flawless and manufacturing to go smooth.  If you would like to address things like having the text show up on your CD, embedded metadata and ISRC codes, look up the Red Book Audio Standards, have your music mastered at a credible mastering studio with an experienced audio engineer.

If you are working on a budget and cannot afford an audio engineer, you can create you master with any number of commercially available audio programs.  This method is often very successful, particularly if you have limited requirements for you CD,…ie. do not need CD text to show, do not need metadata or ISRC codes embedded in your music.

Electronic Submission of CD Master:

On occasion we do receive requests from clients who would like to upload their tracks to us and have DVD Copycat create the master.  Again, we usually recommend that you submit a hard copy CD-R master according to Red Book Audio standards.  If you would like us to assemble your master, we can drop your tracks on a CD, but this often times is problematic, as mistakes can be made or preferences can be set not according to the expectations of our clients.  ie, time between tracks is to long or short, track order is not correct, etc.  For these reasons, when we do create audio masters, we do send that master back to the client for approval before manufacturing.

Data CDs and CD-ROMs:

In most circumstances Data CDs and CD-ROMs must be submitted as a hard master on CD-R.  Data CDs can often have auto executable files or complex software  applications, or too many files to accurately transfer over the internet.  So when submitting this type of master, we recommend sending us a fully functional CD-R.  In some circumstances we will create a master for you, but in this exception we will need to send you a copy of the master we created for your approval.

As always, we are looking for ways to provide our clients with top notch service and a great product.  If you have suggestions on how we can make improvements, please contact us and tell us about it.  We are looking forward to another successful year in 2011 and look forward to serving all of our current great clients and picking up some new ones too.

The best way to make sure the track names show on your CD is to use a CD TOC or Table of Contents.  This TOC must be created and properly embedded into your CD by your audio engineer.  What gets confusing is that you can accomplish getting your track names to appear on your CD by also using I Tunes or similar program and submitting your track names to the CDDB or Grace-note database.  This solution only works, however, if you have an internet connection which can access the Grace-note database and download the track names to your player.  So without internet connection, all you will see is “Track 1″, “Track 2″, etc. on your player.

To make things a little more complicated, there is also additional information called ISRC(International Standard Recording Code) codes that can be used as a “digital fingerprint” as a unique identifier for your particular audio track.  You can get these codes by contacting usISRC.org and applying for them.  These codes also must be embedded by your audio engineer and are primarily used to identify your song for online purchase or general identification.

In short, getting your CD Text to show is not as easy as you might think, but with the right advice and audio expert you can cover all of your bases.

ISRC Codes, TOC(CD Table of Contents) and Gracenote or CDDB database must all be considered to make sure your CDs content is traceable and identifiable and that the CD Text shows on all players.

After you have finished all of these steps, you are then ready for your CD Replication or CD Duplication Job.

If you have more questions that you cannot find answered on our website, take a look at this good resource for Compact Disc manufacturing information.

I suspect that in one more year authoring systems will be much more robust and cost effective.  This will be the real key to seeing more Blu-ray duplication business.  We are seeing BD Duplication orders steadily rising this year and strongly suspect that delivering high def video on Blu-ray for the ordinary video or film maker is only about a year away from really starting and about 2-3 years to go mainstream.

Blu-ray player costs have dropped very rapidly also, which is helping to further instigate adoption.

The last real roadblock in making BD more mainstream is the authoring software out there.  So many platforms are still “glitchy” when it comes to outputting your final high def content out to master.  Hopefully as the market adopts, more software developers will add resources into making their platforms more robust.

We have accepted both BD master and hard drives with the BDMV files on them.  We do prefer the BD (blu-ray) master to the hard drive, though, as we have to up-charge for the transfer to the first master disc.

If you need more info for your next Blu-ray Duplication project, just give us a holler at 1-866-210-8768 or email me at brian@dvdcopycat.com.  We will be more than willing to help.

If you are looking for standard DVD,  just jump over to our national DVD site posted here.

DVD Duplication

About 4 years ago I had an employee come to me and say he had a very bad tooth ache and need to remedy the situation.  His only option was to have the tooth pulled because he could not afford a root canal($150 vs. $3000).

At that time, and still to this day, we did not offer health care to our employees as the expense is just too high.    I only covered myself on a catastrophic policy, $6K deductible with no prescription benefits.  A policy that cost me about $148 per month(and I hear that it will be going up by 40% as my provider is Blue Cross).

As owner I was still paying myself a small salary at the time, I believe it was around $22000 for that year and I was by no means “living it up”.  My feeling were that any extra money should go into investing in the company or to try to provide a higher salary for employees.

I told my employee with the toothache that I could pay for half of the cost to have his tooth pulled.  This was my attempt at trying to provide some health assistance when legitimate health care was out of reach for my company.  He took me up on the offer and to this day that employee is missing that tooth.  No replacement, just a gap where the tooth once was.

Today, my company has grown to the point where I am considering providing heath care for my employees, but I still cannot justify the costs.  The current Healthcare Reform Bill has proposed tax credits that should give my business the break it needs to provide health care to not only myself, but all of my employees.

This legislation that Congress is voting on today will be the deciding factor on whether or not legitimate health care will be a realistic option for our company.  I have done what I can to support this legislation and will keep my fingers crossed.  I do want my employees to have to choose between cost and care.

As a responsible business man and someone who values my employees greatly, I cannot tell you how happy I would be to see this legislation pass.