Many people are using DVDs as an alternative to live streaming in Care Homes.
Many Care Homes do not have the technology or money to facilitate Live Streaming so the DVD is prooving its worth, helping bring both entertainment and also valuable information into Care Homes and remote locations.
For more guidance about Care Homes visit you can visit:
Stay Safe!
Many of us have seen recently how music can be used as great therapy with many medical conditions.
Through Lockdown we have seen music bring much joy and consolation to people who are living remotely or housebound; indeed it brings joy to all of us and can raise the spirits at any time.
A fine example of this has come into the spotlight this week.
A piece of music composed from just 4 notes by Paul Harvey aged 80 years who is suffering with dementia, has now been recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
And most importantly given him a new lease of life.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54684038
If you feel inspired to record or release one some of your music on CD,DVD or BLU-Ray give us a call and we can help you.
We are pleased to let you know that we now offer printing and duplication of USB memory sticks.
See more info here – just hover your mouse over the option to see a
description:
https://www.duplicationcentre.co.uk/prices.html
Email martin@duplicationcentre.co.uk or if you would like to chat about it give him a ring on 01702 530 354.
Bespoke USB Sticks
We live in an age where all things exist on the cloud, but this is only partly true for the text information’s we see when playing CD-Audio disc.
There are in fact two ways to add track text info to a disc:
In the beginning, not long after CDs were released in the 80s, an update was made so small amounts of text could be added to a CD. This text lives in sub channels of the disc so it won’t effect playback, but a CD-TEXT enabled player can read and display the information. Nowadays these players are less common, but still used in most car stereos unless you’re driving one of a few higher end vehicles.
A common assumption is that most computers read CD text, however this is not the case; iTunes, Windows Media Player etc. do not use CD-Text at all. They use a more modern system, the GraceNote – Compact Disc Data Base (CDDB). With this system none of the text used is actually stored on the disc, but all saved on the internet.
When you insert a CD and view through iTunes for example, the computer identifies the disc and then looks it up on the web. If it cannot find a match it will not display the text information, or may display a close match (from another artist!). So even if you have a CD which has CD text, but is not registered with the CDDB, its unlikely the text will show up on a computer at all.
We have customers who have experienced this problem and fortunately its very easy to correct.
We recommend using iTunes as it’s one of the easiest ways to upload your CD information.
The below link will show you how to do this in just a few minutes:
http://support.gracenote.com/support/pkb_Home?l=en_US&c=Public%3AArtists_Labels_Publishers
Once submitted it can take a couple of days to update but that’s all you need to do.
In the duplication process we have to use a hard copy disc master to work from, and in the past our customers have largley sent these to us by post…..and many still do!
We have however found it particularly helpful during the lockdown period that we are able to accept customers masters digitally and create a hard copy master to work from here. With queues at the Post Offices because of social distancing and less staff working it has been a really helpful.
We can create masters from your files if you have an electronic image in ISO, JMG, NRG, DDP or BIN /CUE or you can send us audio or video files which need authoring.
If you need any more information about this the FAQ’s on the website can help you or you can call us on 01702-530 354 and ask any questions.
Music is the Universal Language of Mankind…how true this is!!!
With or without lyrics music can be enjoyed by any person of any nationality!
Keep playing and enjoying your music!
Maybe even take up a new instrument!
It’s so interesting to read the wealth of good that can come from learning a new instrument.
Have a look at the web-site below
https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/reasons-to-play-a-musical-instrument/
This is the third and final article by Mark Smith our Director of Technology here at Duplication Centre; helping you to understand some of the terminology and abbreviations used in the industry.
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.
As in most Industries there are many terms and abbreviations which are used in duplication, that have become part of our ordinary language. For the uninitiated these terms can sometimes appear complicated and a bit daunting. This is especially true of file formats as some terms are used to define different entity’s even when working in the same markets!
Our Director of Technology Mark Smith has written a series for articles that we will publish over the next 3 weeks explaining some of the most used terms,in relation the 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 always 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 matching partner, never mixed or edited. Further information of this file type can be found here.
The Blu-ray Disc founder group was started in 2002 by MIT and nine leading Electronics Companies: Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, Phillips, Thomson, LG Electronics, Hitachi, Sharp and Samsung Electronics.
The name is taken from the blue laser that is used to read from and record to a Blu ray disc, the blue laser allows for a much higher density and hence a larger storage capacity and so the Blu-Ray disc is a digital optical disc data storage format.
It was designed to supersede the DVD format, and is capable of storing several hours of video in high definition (HDTV 720p & 1080p) and Ultra High Definition Resolution (2160p).
Although the Blu-Ray disc looks exactly the same as a DVD in size and shape there are many differences between media including storage capacity,laser technology and disc construction,image resolution and player compatibility.
The Blu-Rays storage capacity is measured in gigabytes (GB), like computers and ipods.
Storage Comparison:
DVD Single Layer: Can store about 4.7GB data which is about two hours worth of movie at Standard Definition…these are commonly referred to as DVD 5’s.
DVD Dual Layer: Can store twice the amount of data at 8.7 GB which equals about four hours of movie at Standard Definition ….these are commonly referred to as DVD 9 ‘s.
Blu-Ray Single layer: Can store approximately 25Gb data, this equals about 2 hours of High Definition Information or 13 hours of Standard Definition Information.
Dual Layer Blu-Ray :can store about 50GB data which is about 4 hours of High Definition Information or 26 hours of Standard Definition.
Laser Technology
Lasers are used in both DVD and Blu-ray technology .As the disc spins the laser reads the information stored on the discs and transfers both the picture and the sound to the television.
DVD: DVD players use a red laser at 650nm wave length to read DVD discs
Blu-Ray : Blu-Ray players use a Blue laser to read the stored information; the wave lenghts are shorter than the red at 405nm and are smaller in diameter, this allows for a closer and more precise reading of the information on the disc.
Disc Construction:
Physically DVD and Blu-Ray discs are the same in appearance:both have circular tracks on their bottom layer that enables the laser to read information stored on the spinning disc.
The tracks on a DVD are much further apart than on the Blu-Ray; you will see that it follows from this that the amount of information that can be stored on each type of disc is different; the Blu-Ray having the far greater storage capacity.In short a Blu-ray can squeeze about 5 times as many tracks onto the same size disc as a DVD.
Both DVD and Blu-Ray have a protective layer designed to resist scratching; the Blu-Ray in addition has a hard coating that makes it more scratch resistant.
Image Resolution
This is measured by the number of vertical lines times the number of horizontal lines of light in a picture.It is represented by the number of horizontal lines going across the screen like 480, 720 or 1080.The higher the number, the higher the resolution the more detailed the picture you see.
DVD: Almost all DVD’s have standard definition of 480 or enhanced definition of 520.This look ok on a standard television,utilising all the available pixels on the screen. If however this is blown up to a large HDTV the picture may look grainy.
Blu-Ray: The Blu-Ray was designed for the high definition 1080 display….since they can store 25 GB data you can fit a whole High Definition movie on a single layer. Blu-Ray currently has the best image resolution on the market and looks amazing on HDTV, they are one of the only sources that display in 1080.
Player Compatibility:
Happily Blu-ray Players support DVD’s and the image will be decent but obviously not the high definition quality of a Blu-ray.
Due to the larger lasers used in DVD players they it cannot read the tiny grooves on a Blu-ray disc.
In short you can play a DVD in a Blu-ray player but you cannot play a Blu-ray in a DVD player.
Lastly and very importantly Blu-Ray can handle 4K (Ultra HD)...we don’t need an new type of disc for our new TV’s; you can have it all with the Blu-Ray !