We are closed for the Coronation Bank Holiday and will reopen on Tuesday 9th May.
You can still place orders online and upload any art and content to us during this time.
We will be back in the office and in full production on Tuesday morning at 8am.
If you have any queries or questions that you would like answered just email and i will get back to you on Tuesday:
una@duplicationcentre.co.uk
I write this after a comment from a customer on Live Chat.
They asked me are you a real person ? They were so pleased when i responded “Yes!”
Just thought it was worth highlighting that we are real people answering your live chat conversations…and we love chatting to you and helping you in whatever way we can. The chat comes through to our desk top computers so that we can access any information to be able to help you straight away.
Every few months we check our competition to make sure we offer the lowest prices for CD/DVD/Blu Ray Duplication.
We’ve just done it for this quarter with a guarantee that we will match or be better already, to any other like for like quote.
We also ensure our quality is exceptional by investing in new technology.
This, at the very time our competitors are looking to cut corners.
Just installed is our new Digital Press, which means your artwork will look incredible.
We use only professional Grade A cases adn all our artwork is printed on FSC Certified and Sustainable card & paper .
Call us for a quote or a chat about your project.
01702 530354
Hope you all had a Peaceful Easter.
We are back to business as usual and ready to personally take your calls or live chat.
If we can be of any help with your order we will be very happy to advise or assist you.
Call on 01702 530354
Live Chat from the Home Page
or Email: una@duplicationcentre.co.uk
Our offices are closed from Good Friday through the Easter Bank Holiday and we re-open on Tuesday 11th April at 8 am.
During this time you can still place orders online and upload content and artwork, via the link that will automatically come to you after check out.
We will get orders in to production first thing Tuesday (11th) morning.
If you have any questions or need any help please email : una@duplicationcentre.co.uk ; i will be checking my emails on Saturday morning (8th) and can respond to you then.
Everyone at Duplication Centre wishes you a very Peaceful and Happy Easter.
With Easter approaching, and for the whole of April , we are giving you 4 extra full units with your order.
Your order can be for any quantity!
Just add the code FREE4 in the special code box as you check out.
If you need any help with your order just email:
una@duplicationcentre.co.uk
Beware, we are now moving into the area of artwork and the word image no longer relates to a disc image! When talking about artwork, and image is simply a picture, a graphic or photograph
PDF stands for “portable document format.” Adobe Systems designed this format, which has become the standard for exchanging electronic documents. Its a very complex and powerful format used extensively in artwork design and printing, perfect for supplying your artwork supporting the other artwork formats below, as well as special print formats, colours and vector graphics.
These image formats are ideal for photos and similar images containing many colours offering good quality and acceptable sizes are possible. The quality / file size of a jpeg can be altered through the use of compression.
The three formats all vary slightly in the way they apply compression to the images, each with its own advantages. For printing its best to keep the compression at a minimum so the files are larger and better quality.
This format is only used by the graphics programs Photoshop. The files are generally large and contain lots of additional information and layers which are not needed for print. The complexity of the files make them perfect for editing and designing, BUT not ideal for printing. You should save your artwork to PDF or JPEG when ready to submit for printing.
To learn more about artwork formats this article is a good place to start, offering beginner guides to the various types: Further information on artwork formats.
Unlike the disc image formats above, these are just individual audio files used by computers. They require ‘Authoring’ to a disc. Authoring a CD means taking the audio (in any of the formats) and writing it into a format and structure a simple CD player can understand and play
These are high quality audio files, very similar to standard CD-Audio. This is a very common format used in recording studios .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAV
AIFF is practically identical to WAV, but this format was developed by Apple in the late 80’s. Another very common format in recording studios.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Interchange_File_Format
This is a digital music format created for sending audio over the internet. The great attraction of the MP3 format is its ability to compress files, allowing them to use much less space. Technically lower quality than the above audio formats, but not really in any noticeable way
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3
The Free Lossless Audio Codec. This is a newer format which is able to compress audio to take up space just like an MP3, but does so in a ‘lossless’ way. This means the audio quality should not be degraded in any way, but the file size will be noticeably smaller. A useful format that has only seen uptake in technical and audiophile community.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLAC
This section may appear a bit short, but I had to draw the line somewhere. There are a very large number of video formats that have existed over the years, far too many to discuss here. In practice there are 2 very common ones.
All video formats will require ‘Authoring’ to make a standard DVD-Video disc (OR a Blu-Ray-Video disc) to be player in a standard player. Simply burning a video file on a disc will not necessarily allow it to play in a standard player.
A modern high quality video format widely used in consumer and professional markets.
Another modern high quality video format widely used in consumer and professional markets. Developed by Apple.
I am republishing, over the next 3 weeks a series of explanations of some of the most used terms, in relation the optical media (CD, DVD and Blu-Ray) market. With links for more detailed explanations:
This simply means a hard copy CD or DVD which we can use to duplicate from.
The type of images here are not photographic images. The term relates to a ‘snapshot’ of the contents of a disc, the format and the exact layout.
The most important thing when working with disc images is you are sure you have formatted them correctly. Failing to do this will result in any discs made from them to be faulty. If there is any doubt, or you are new to this area, ask for help and advice. We have a team here who are available for email, phone or online chat and will be very happy to help and advise you.
An .iso image is a computer file that is an exact copy of an existing file system. ISO files are typically created through a software application that will extract the contents of a CD or DVD, and then write then as an exact electronic copy of the original disc to a file (a .iso file). This allows us to burn to burn an exact copy of the original onto CD or DVD.
Iso files are perfectly acceptable for CD-Rom and DVD-Video, but should not be used for CD-Audio due to technical restrictions
This format is very similar to a .ISO image with a few subtle changes and features which are beyond the scope of this article. For our purpose they can be used the same as an ISO, but more in depth information can be found in this article should you wish to learn more.
Like ISO files, .img should not be used for CD-Audio discs.
These files are a relatively new proprietary optical disc image file format. NRG files are used in the same way as other image formats, but are a more advanced and very versatile.
NRG files can be used for any type and format of disc, CD-ROM, CD-Audio, DVD-Video, Blu-Ray, etc.
This stands for Disc Description Protocol and is commonly used for delivery of disc pre-masters for commercial Glass Master Replication. The DDP format is compatible with all CD and DVD discs and is the industry professional format used in mass manufacture of discs. Although becoming more common, its a relatively unknown format used mainly within the optical media industry for transporting discs electronically between production facility’s and mastering houses.
DDP files can be accepted the same as all other listed image formats for duplication, but are not a specific requirement in any way. Further more detailed information on this format is available here.
This is a versatile image file format particularly useful for CD-Audio. The consist of two files,
Each of the Bin & Cue files are meaningless on their own, and must be provided together with their specific and matchingpartner, never mixed or edited. Further information of this file type can be found here.
Next week we will look at Audio files …….
What better way to give your fans something to remember a special gig, than to sell them an EP or Full Album of your songs.
Our single card wallets are a really good option for the packaging, as they are professional quality but very inexpensive for you to buy from us.
You can easily sell these on for £5 …or £10 and get a great margin.
Even if your fans don’t have a cd player, they will love to buy a signed cd, to support you and have the memory of a great night.
With bespoke artwork that you design, our single card wallets are printed on 350gsm FSC Certified and sustainable silk finish card.
We have an artwork creation tool you can download to help you.
Everything you need is in our artwork section:
https://www.duplicationcentre.co.uk/artwork.html
If you have any questions please email una@duplicationcentre.co.uk, and i’ll be very happy to help you .