Duplication Centre

A special utility is needed to determine the disc ID code

It’s getting harder and harder to be a good consumer of digital goods nowadays. It’s generally known that high – quality media are far more reliable than ‘bulk – quality’ Chinese or Malaysian products, but still many people lack knowledge or willingness to pay closer attention to their buying choices. Also companies that outsource discs production to media vendors want to keep an average user unaware of the disc origin. But sooner or later consumers will have to face the truth which is as follows: with the proliferation of cheaply-made discs about half of all media on the market are inferior quality!

Everytime you use bad, cheaply-made media you risk loosing your data. Buying a good disc will save your time and money in the long run. But buying a good discs does not always mean paying for what’s on the top of the shelf. You may be pleasantly surprised!

Here are a few tips on how to search for a high-quality discs. First of all, it’s the manufacturer that matters, not the brand. It’s the reality of the globalised economy where all possible stages of production are outsourced. The most reliable factories are placed in Japan, Taiwan and Singapore, the least – traditionally in China and Malaysia. However, the most important criterion, which reveals the media manufacturer is hidden. It’s the disc ID. You will not find it on the packaging or on the disc surface. In order to read the media ID code, you have to place it in a DVD burner drive which has the utility needed to read the code, such as ImgBurn or Toast. Or you can simply download the software from the Internet.

It’s also good to do a small research on the Internet. There are a few reliable, consumer-oriented organizations which publish an annual review of good and high – quality media. What appears with the greatest frequency and is really worth an extra search while buying is: Verbatim DVD – R, DVD + R or DVD + R DL, made in India, UAE, Singapore or Taiwan (avoid ‘Life series’ or ‘Value series’ discs); JVC Taiyo Yuden DVD – R or DVD + R from an authorised dealer only; Sony DVD + R and DVD – R manufactured in Taiwan only. So, appropriately, the highest quality media ID codes are: TAIYOYUDEN, TYG01, TYG02, YUDEN, MCC, sony D05

And what are the benefits of this extra investment in quality buying? The answer is: better disc sustainability, 95- 100% success rate (comparing to 0-50% performed by the worse), the most successful burns and data safety. It’s worth it!

The amount of the disc returns and wastage is growing every year

With billions of CDs and DVDs being released every year, the demand for dealing with returns and confiscated pirated discs is still bigger than supply. This branch of industry has a promising future since it seems like there is a market for everything: recycled shrinkwrap, paper, cardboard, the plastic case and the disc itself. And the most valuable and desired in the whole process is its security. Recycled material is later used in the automotive industry and in household utilities.

Every single stage of the disc recycling is an extra secure procedure – mainly because of the intellectual copyrights of the returned material and data sensitivity, but also to ensure that the discs coming from raided pirated facilities will be removed from the market forever. The returns from replicators and distributors are delivered on pallets and wrapped in a black plastic film to make any attempt of tampering easy to detect. All employees are vetted before being allowed to work at the facility premises. Destruction takes place in a separate containers and is closely monitored by CCTV cameras. Discs are dismantled automatically, there is almost no manual job involved in the recycling process. Recycling plants have dedicated granulators for each kind of polymer processed, so basically there is no ‘waste’. The higher percentage of plastic contained in the final product, the more valuable the mix. The amount of plastic should exceed 96%.

Not only CDs and DVDs are subject to recycling. Specialised plants can deal also with tape, VHS and even vinyl, which is enyoing the renewal of its popularity, to extract the plastic.

Although recycling is already a green business there are attempts to make it even more green and efficient and thus more profitable. In order to optimise the chain destruction, companies are moving away from storing loads of packaged material to be manufactured and set up destruction facilities on site. They provide the necessary equipment, the qualified staff and bags for the destroyed discs. Replicators’ job consists only in feeding discs into the machine. Everything else is fully automated and secure, because nothing ever even leaves the site. It allows to get rid of the transportation issues and as a result – cuts down the carbon dioxide emission.