I work for a company that specialises in producing printed training material. It’s not just any old training material though; we work mainly with the Marine/Maritime industries all over the world such as Oil and Gas Extraction, Ship Repair, Marine and Deep Sea Salvage amongst others. We have recently increased our range of services to include the production of high quality training videos aimed at the larger scale companies who may be training several hundred personnel at any one time. The first batch of videos that we produced, were extremely well received and we have had enquiries from many sources about producing more comprehensive and detailed videos.

When a Standard DVD Just Isn’t Enough

Our first range of videos were either burnt onto standard 4.7 GB capacity DVD discs or were shown to training delegates using a projector via a laptop. The requests we were receiving more recently were for hard copies of the video training material so we suddenly found ourselves needing a reputable supplier of DVD duplication services. As the training videos developed and became more detailed and in-depth, the size of the video files started to become a real issue. The standard DVDs just didn’t have the capacity we needed and this was coupled with the fact that we were being requested for high definition video as in many cases the video was intended for display during in-house training sessions in front of projector screens with a room full of trainees.

I was tasked with satisfying this requirement as I was working with the video production team and had some experience with video editing and also with computer artwork software such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. My first step was to search the internet for UK based companies who were currently offering a DVD duplication service to see if they could offer advice. As expected, there were quite a few applicable companies with great websites and a lot of positive customer feedback. My usual approach with these things is to send out an enquiry email and see who gets back to me first so that I can sound them out and make a judgement call on you will be easiest to deal with. About ten minutes after making the enquiry, I had a call from a gentleman named Harry who was a project manager with one of the larger UK based CD and DVD duplication companies. Harry was very knowledgeable and courteous and seemed to be someone who I could happily deal with.

The Blu-ray DVD Duplication Solution

I discussed the details of the project and its requirements with Harry and he advised me to go for Blu-ray DVD duplication. A Blu-ray DVD can hold up to 25GB of video data on a single layer disc and 50GB on a single dual layer disc and so we could easily fit our high definition video files onto a single disc for playback via a Blu-ray DVD player or PC/laptop with a Blu-ray compatible drive. The process for producing an interactive menu is the same as for a standard DVD and so we would be able to work with Harry on that side of the project as well. Blu-ray DVDs are over twice the cost of standard DVDs and duplication costs also tend to be higher due to the larger files and consequential greater length of time required for duplication but we had a rapidly filling order book with the type of client who wouldn’t quibble over the price, so no problem there.

I then went on to discuss duplication quantities with Harry and we decided upon an initial 300 copies of our main title and he supplied me with a quote. Just to satisfy company requirements, I also asked another 2 companies whose representatives had called me back for quotes for 300 Blu-ray DVDs as well. As it turned out there wasn’t much in the three prices, so I stuck with Harry as we had struck up a business relationship at this point.

Disc and Packaging Artwork

My experience with computer software packages meant that I could put together the artwork for the Blu-ray DVD and the packaging, myself. Harry supplied me with artwork templates and I will stress at this point how important it was for me to discuss this with Harry as he was able to help me avoid mistakes that would be costly in terms of project timing, such as:

• The best way to supply disc artwork is as a 123mm square image at 300dpi. The printable DVD surface is 120mm in diameter with a 25mm diameter central hole. The extra 3mm around the edge is a bleed allowance and you need to leave about 4mm of clearance from the outer edge and inner circle edge for any text, particularly if the artwork is to be screen printed.
• Check that any photographic images to be used are not too dark, sometimes dark photos might look great on a screen but not so great when printed. This goes for print on the discs and on the packaging.
• The Blu-ray DVD packaging templates that Harry supplied us with allowed for 3mm of bleed around all the outside edges and, again, allow for a 4mm clearance from the outer edges for any text.
• If the artwork consists of block colours and text then the disc can be screen printed which gives a fantastic, vibrant look to the finished disc. Florescent or metallic inks can also be used in screen printed designs.
• If the artwork is a photographic image or contains colour gradients then it needs to be lithographically printed which is a great process for producing pin sharp images at 300 dpi and upwards.
• A combination of photographic images and solid colours is not a good idea as they would have to be litho printed and this isn’t a good process for consistent solid colour printing.

On the Blu-ray DVD packaging side of things, I was offered a choice of standard Blu-ray cases – a translucent blue plastic case which is otherwise the same as a standard DVD case, or conventional packaging types such as card wallets and jewel cases. We wanted to create a great first impression with this new product so we took the Blu-ray DVD case option as this enabled us to include a digitally printed wrap-around cover which slides into a clear plastic sleeve around the outside of the case and also an 8 page instruction booklet that fits inside the case and is held in place by clips that are moulded into the case body.

Once more I took on the task of producing the artwork for the case wrapper and the instruction booklet. There are a few points here to take note of, such as:

• Take advantage of templates to use as guidance if your supplier can get them to you.
• The outer case wrapper artwork should have a 3mm allowance for bleed and try to keep any text at least 4mm inside the outer edge.
• Be aware of the position of the spine text on the case cover (if you need it). The spine on a conventional Blu-ray DVD case is 14mm wide and will be marked on the template. Make sure that your text is placed centrally in the spine area.
• The same bleed and text allowances are necessary for the printed instruction booklet if you need to include one. Also, take note of how the booklet will be printed as the page order can be confusing. For instance, the outside cover of the booklet has the front cover on the right hand side and the rear cover on the left, on the reverse side it has page 1 on the left and the last page on the right. When you see the outside cover folded, this will make more sense.
• Unless the booklet is a single sheet, printed on one or both sides, the booklet can only have multiples of 4 pages – i.e. 4, 8, 12, 16 etc due to the way they’re constructed. If you don’t have that much content, you can always pad it out with images.
• Be aware of image copyright. If you’re not using original images owned by you for the artwork then make sure you source images from a stock image website and that the copyright detail allows you to use the images on printed material that you intend to sell.

Blu-ray DVD Duplication

With the artwork completed, submitted and approved, the DVDs are printed. For this job we went for litho printing as the image was photographic. Once the discs are printed they can then be burnt with the video files in the duplication suite. The Blu-ray DVD duplication suite contains many duplication towers that are linked together “daisy chain” style. Each of the towers contains between 11 and 40 optical drives similar to the Blu-ray writing drives that are available for desktop PCs. The drives are all controlled by a central master unit which is loaded with the video data to be burnt to all other discs. Loading and unloading of the discs is performed automatically by robotic arms which do the job quickly and efficiently and remove the element of potential human error. It would be an incredibly tedious job to do manually and would add a lot of time to the project making it much more expensive.

When the DVDs have been duplicated they are then sent off to the packaging assembly line where they are packed into the cases along with the paper parts. They are then ready for despatch.

Summary

I was lucky to have found a reputable and knowledgeable supplier but I did do a fair amount of research before making a decision which I would thoroughly recommend to anyone else who needs a Blu-ray DVD duplication supplier