We duplicate many DVD’s for School’s and College’s in the run up to Christmas.
It is a great way to give families a lasting memory of these special production’s and a brilliant way to raise funds if you decide to sell them.
Give us a call to see how we can help you get this organised for your School or College.
Congratulations to Country Music Social Media, one of our regular customers who recently won UK Country Radio Awards for both male & female country singer of the year and had 14 other nominations.
The British Country Music awards take place on 25th November this year and includes nominations for artists on the Cd we recently duplicated for them.
All of their awards and nominations are on their website:
www.countrymusicsocialmedia.com
As we approach Remembrance Day we are proud to have duplicated many DVD’s and CD’s dedicated to the many who lost their lives in the Two World Wars and in other conflicts around the world.
We support Help For Hero’s and salute all those who fought to make the world a better place; and for those who still defend us in the Armed Forces.
We have worked for many years with Rookie Rockstar’s who work with Young People to help
improve their mental health and well being. Another recent customer Afan Arts also work with Young People to to help them realise their potential and ability often in the face of difficulties.
Rookie are based in Scotland and part of their work which involves our support is in their schools programme.
They go into Primary Schools and give the children the opportunity to work with professional musicians and singers and learn original songs; then to record a CD ,which we duplicate and pack in a card wallet with art designed by the children from the school.
We then send these direct to the school for each child to have a copy.
The children also perform the work in a concert.
https://rookierockstars.org.uk/
Our recent work with Afan Arts who are based in Wales was a DVD “B is for Bully”.
A wonderful phrase on their website summarises anti-bullying that both these charity’s are working to elimate:
A lot of problems would disappear if we talked to each other instead of about each other.
Why is it that your printed colours look different to what you see on your monitor? Everything looks great on the screen but the prints come out subtly different.
The truth is you will never see a perfect match between images on the screen and images on paper, they are simply put, two very different entity’s.
You monitor image is made us from pixels, these are thousands of tiny lights, and each of these lights can produce around 16 million colours, which is more than our eyes can recognise! These lights are know as the RGB (Red, Green, Blue) colour space.
A printed image is made up from dots of ink splashed on a piece of paper. We use 4 ink colours for this, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key black. These 4 make up the CMYK colour space. The first three colours are used to reproduce colour, in a similar way to your monitor, the final ‘Key black’ is needed for practical reasons, but its not so important to this topic.
When light hits an colour ink splash on the paper, only the same colour light is reflected, which is a small part of the light which hits is. In contrast the same dot of colour on screen it a light source itself and much stronger than a reflection. So it should already make sense why printed paper would not be as bright on screen, they exist in a smaller range of brightness!
There’s also another restriction on printed images which is because the reflected light is relatively small they only produce a relatively small range of colours, perhaps a few thousand at the most. This is a big reduction from the 16 million available on your monitor! Now you don’t need to worry about this too much, our computers and printers are very good an handling these difficulties, but you should try to keep in mind the subtle details in images can be lost, for example, dark grey text on a black background that is only just visible on screen, will probably as solid black.
The next experiment, take a printed image and hold it next to the computer monitor. Now turn the lights off, which one can you see!
The fact is you cannot print light to a piece of paper. So the bright and florescent Reds, Pinks, Yellows, etc which which have so much energy can only be produced with a light behind them. The moment you convert them to print they will be much duller. There are techniques which might help a little when converting them, but really is no fix for this one. If you are designing artwork for print the ideal solution is to use the CMYK colour space from the beginning. This way there are no surprises at the end.
The reflection of an ink splash on paper is only a close approximation of the intended colour. Even the type of light bulb in the room your in can affect the colours you see! The same is true for the type or paper you are printing on. So imagine if the the papers are different, or one of them is not paper at all, perhaps a plastic CD. Or maybe the printers are made by different companies, or use different printing technology. Variation is the prints will be expected.
Again, this is not something you need to look at fixing yourself, printers and the things they print on are carefully ‘tuned’ so they produce images as accurately as possible.
So you’ve carefully designed some art, keeping in mind all the possible variations, but have you done it right?
You could ask us to check, we’re the experts right? Well yes, but even experts can make mistakes but more importantly this is the first time we have seen you art. We have no way of knowing what effect you are trying to achieve, we don’t know if you have a golden Sun tan or an orange glow, we don’t know if the car in the background should be Green or Blue, or if there way supposed to be the outline of a cat in the shadows.
So who is best placed to check this then? Easy, the same person who knows exactly what the artwork should look like…. You!
I know, we’ve gone full circle, but the solution to this problem is a proof print. Proofs are very common in the print industry and will show you exactly how the print comes out. They are not always necessary, especially if your experienced enough to know what you might receive but if this is you first venture into print, and the details for this one need to be perfect then a proof is definitely the way to go.
Just live on our Web-Site for the start of October is the New 4 Page Lancing Pack.
The Lancing pack is a 4 panel card wallet which opens like a book.
Printed in full colour front,back and inside using our industry leading digital press.
There are 4 panels for your artwork and an opening on the right for your disc to slot snugly into.
The card is die cut for an immaculate finish and is made from FSC Certified and sustainable premium Pro Card Stock 300 gsm .
The Lancing Pack has a modern look and is the perfect,more Eco-Friendly option to the CD Jewell Case.
And for the finishing touch you can choose to have Shrinkwrap applied to the Lancing Pack or for it to be sealed in one of our fitted Cellobags.
What is the difference?
CELLOWRAP:
We use this process for wrapping Single Standard DVDs along with Double DVDs,3 Way and 4 Way DVD cases and for all Standard Single and Double Jewell cases.
This process is semi-automated and applies a thick plastic outer wrap by a heat sealing process, to pre-cut pieces of the plastic wrap.
SHRINKWRAP:
We can use this process to wrap any of the cases we offer in the duplication process using PVC shrink film (gauge 15 micron) including:
Jewell Cases both single and any multi-way, DVD cases single and multi-way, Blu-Ray cases both single and multi-way,Clam Shells, Digi-paks, and all the slimline versions of the cases that we offer on the web-site. We can also use shrinkwrap on our digi-paks and card wallets.
Like cellowrapping this is a semi-automated process where the roll of wrap is cut to size using a heat bar, sealed and then literally “shrunk” to fit the case being wrapped with a heat gun.The customer then rips this off to open the product.
Both of these processes produce fully sealed units which not only look very professional but are then fit for sale on the internet. For many company’s cellowrap /shrinkwrap is a requirement acting as proof that the product is new and has not been “tampered” with.
Both are easily removed and then the wrap needs to be discarded.
CELLOBAGS:
These are bespoke bags that we have are made-to-measure for products that we offer them on; they fit snugly and look professional.
They are clear and can be sealed with a sticky panel much like a self-seal envelope.
The advantage with these is that with careful removal your product can be reinserted for added storage protection.
The process of applying these is completely manual.
It is available on all the single and double cd jewell cases (standard and slimline) and on DVDs both single double 3 and 4 way as well as the slimline version.
It is the most popular choice for our card wallet and digi-pak products.
These are all optional additions to the packing of your order and not essential unless you plan to sell on web-site like Amazon where it is a must!
All of our customers are producing a CD,DVD or Blu-Ray to communicate Audio and/or Visual, Music, Spoken Word, Information or Performances to their audience/customers. This is the main event!
With a physical CD, DVD or Blu-Ray however there is another dimension/medium available to express visually in Word, Picture and Images through the use of printed covers and booklet inserts. This recruits yet another of our senses and gives an additional aesthetic dimension to your product. For most customers this is a really important feature of the duplication process and for many is not just the imparting of information, but another expression of art.
Our clients can spend a great deal of ti
me designing artwork for their orders so with this in mind we invest in a State of the Art printer technology which is second to none for print production.
We only use the highest quality card and paper on all the associated printed parts that come with CD, DVD and Blu-Ray Production.
How often have you pulled out a CD/DVD booklet that is thin and shoddy quality? We know that you want your duplication order to be of a professional standard so we only use card that is 350gsm and 170gsm papers. These are good to handle and allow the print quality to show at its best. Your carefully planned project deserves no less than the highest quality printed parts and that is what we provide.
We also manage to remain Eco-friendly whilst maintaining this high quality by using FSC certified sustainable stock for our printing 🙂
We have always favoured the Amaray DVD cases. Their quality in the industry is well known and we value using high quality professional cases for all our orders.
We just thought that we would update you about our choice to use the Amaray Ecolite cases whenever we can which you will notice if you look on the inside of the case that it does not carry the usual AMARAY branding stamp.
These is however an itc number embossed on the spine of all Amaray Ecolite cases so you know that it is genuine.
This information comes directly from Amaray and we feel is good justification to continue to use the ecolite case for our orders.
The Ecolite was a down weighting to deliver the same performance of product but 7g less material which is 14% weight saving.
To achieve this we re inserted face plates to new weight.
The material remains the same which is 100% polypropylene even the clear inlay film is. PP(polypropylene) is a great plastic that recycles easily up to 20+ times and can be reused for multiple products. The colour pigment is also PP based clean food grade. Therefore if/when the product reaches end of life the Amaray case can be fully recycled.
Finally within Amaray manufacturing UK we create zero scrap – all machine rejects/start up waste is fed back in through the process and reused.
This article is revisiting the topic of casing and giving a more up to date analysis of what is available and popular at the moment.
Over the last few years there has been a great shift in the type of CD/DVD casing chosen by customers.This is partly due to the increasing access we all have to the digital world, where personalising and producing bespoke products is much easier and ever more professional in outcome.
Whether you are a band selling at gigs or a school producing a play or a company producing product or financial information it matters how you present your CD/DVD to your customer or client.
What are your choices?
The first decision to be made is whether you want printed parts with information on for your customer to read…if you don’t then your options are:
FOR YOUR CDS
A plastic Clam Shell Case or a plastic wallet ; both of these will allow your onbody print on the CD to show through and are a good and really low cost option.
The plastic wallet comes in single or double versions and also those used for inserting into books and magazines with clear self adhesive strips.
If you do want printed parts there are a wealth of options and things to consider.
By far the most popular form of casing currently is the card wallet which we print in full colour on both sides.
The Card Wallet
We have noticed a real shift in sales over the last couple of years and this has grown in popularity to become our best selling case option.There are many reasons for its popularity not least because it is very eco-friendly,unbreakable and easy to post. It is most popular however because you can tailor the wallet to print photos , text…whatever you choose…and end up with an inexpensive bespoke product printed on high quality fsc certified 350 gsm box board.
You can then choose to have these cellobagged or shrinkwrapped just to create the complete profession look or for selling online.
The CD Digi-Pak
Along side this is the CD digi-pak which is a 4 page card option with a clear or black tray for the CD to sit in; this gives
all the same benefits as a card wallet but has the more sturdy plastic tray for the CD to sit in.
And finally in the card range is the 4 page lancing pack which is a double card wallet with one side sealed with glue or left open for a booklet.
The CD Jewell Case
The CD Jewell Case….named because they are said to pick up light like jewells!! …. are transparent plastic, fitted with 2 arms that support the lid…these are by far the most traditional, and were the preferred option for many until recent times.
These too allow you to bespoke your order with 2,4,6 and 8 page booklets giving you the space to include all the information you want to; along with a rear tray,single or double sided for your track listings.
The jewell case also comes in a slimline version where there is no back tray so no art in the back, but still plenty of room for the booklet to be inserted in the front.We have the black tray option on the web-site but can order in a clear tray if you wish.
FOR DVDS
For your DVDS the same decision process applies as with CDS….Do you want printed parts?
As a DVD and a CD Disc are the same size you can have any of the CD casing options if you want to for your DVD….. we do have customers who choose to have a DVD in a slimline cd case for example or in a CD card wallet…..however we do offer some other packaging products which are particularly designed for the DVD.
DVD Digi-pak These are made with the same high quality card as the cd digi-pak but are a different shape…rather more like a book …longer but nice and slimline in design.
Our DVD customers mostly still choose the AMARAY standard DVD case made of plastic which comes in single,double,3,4,5,10 way and so on….
The Standard Amaray DVD Case
They come in all colours but we advertised black and clear as they are by far the most popular.
The clear case gives you the option for a double sided wrap to be printed…the black for just single sided.
This traditional DVD casing can also be ordered with a DVD booklet 2 or 4 page.
Our web-site offers a free artwork creation tool and all the templates for both the disc art and printed paper parts are in our Artwork section. Artwork Creator
If you hover over the case options on the web-site you will also see an image and description of the case in question.After you have done this if you are still undecided give us a call and we’ll use our experience to help you decide. Instant Prices and Ordering