What is Duplication

Many people get confused over the difference between duplication and replication. So on this page we discuss exactly what duplication is.

Duplication is the process of burning CD-R, DVD-Rs or Blu-ray discs in the same manner as you would burn a disc in your computer. However we don't have hundreds of computers burning one disc at a time, instead we use duplication towers to copy the CDs or DVDs these can have up to 14 drives in them and can be 'daisy chained' so literally hundreds of discs can be copied at a time. So what is the advantage of this? There are a couple of answers to this:

1. You can copy as many discs as you want from as little as one.

2. Turn around is pretty quick from as little as 48 hours in some cases.

Once the discs have been copied there are a number of ways the discs can be printed. For full colour images and runs of a 100+ the best quality finish is litho print. For spot colours and runs over 100 screen printing is the best option. For shorter runs ink-jet printing is the most cost effective way to print the discs.

Are there any disadvantages? Again the answer is there are a couple:

1. On larger runs of say a 1000 or more the price tends to be dearer this can sometimes out weigh the benefits of a fast turn around.

2. Some people don't like the aesthetics as you can see the dye on the recording surface, even though the discs play the same as replicated discs.