Increasing The Future Of The CD Duplication World Using Digital Printing Technology

Digital technology has revolutionized many things about business, industry and everyday life, but while it's correct to suggest that the CD duplication industry is in its sunset years, the advancements in technology have given a new life to the industry. As an example, we just have to look at digital printing.

The Efficiencies

There's much more to the CD duplication industry than just discs. It depends on the end use of the CDs but there can be quite a bit of packaging that requires custom printing, and the advent of digital printing machinery have given the ability to greatly reduce min. order requirements for clientele. Many products that once required a minimum order of one thousand units can now be made in amounts as small as one hundred pieces without sacrificing the quality of the print.

The reason for this is the incredible efficiency of digital printing. With conventional offset printing presses there are a lot of set-ups, prep time, and many test prints that must be included in the cost of the finished work, so the easiest method of making it worth all of that effort is to put in place a large min. run quantity. And because there are just a small amount set-up necessities for printing digitally, the min. order requirements are a fraction of what the traditional offset printing press can offer.

After considering environmental factors, it is certainly in everyone's best interests if commercial printers are able to produce less. If a client only needs 300 units of a specific product type yet you are forced to buy a min. order requirement of 500 or even 1,000 units, what's going to happen to all of that extra print? With luck it would end up being put into recycling rather than being thrown into a landfill, but just consider the waste of energy and materials that was used in producing all of that product that was simply thrown away. That amount of wastefulness is simply not acceptable.

‘Green'

One of the spin-off benefits in digital printing is an upsurge in the popularity of ‘green' CD packaging items. In the previous 5 years low plastic and no plastic options in CD packages have grown tremendously in their popularity.

‘Green' CD sleeves and Digipak (TM) were once thought of as ‘premium' styles of CD packaging but, because of the large price tag, only the major record labels could afford to purchase them. Now with digital printing technology and the greater availability of printing stocks many CD duplication companies are selling these packaging styles in quantities as low as 100 or even 50 units. In addition to that, the price difference between new environmentally friendly CD packaging and traditional plastic packaging has shrunk a lot - to the extent that environmentally friendly disc packaging types out-sell the old plastic types.

The Convenience Of It

It's not uncommon that an end-result of advances in digital technology is convenience. In this modern world people are always striving for convenience and, in fact, they expect it. In the CD duplication world the pinnacle of convenience is considered to be submitting an order completely through a website in a Web-To-Print type of environment. This includes providing your CD master content, artwork files, making secure payment, and receiving and approving your proofs without even having to get off of your chair.