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by Terry E. Mercer (c) 1997-1999Published by Replication News, 1998
I don't consider myself an "expert" on CDR's - however, over the part 7 years I have "burned" over 2,500 CD's for replication and wasted another 2,000+ on various tests. Over 7 million CD's were replicated from CD's I have mastered. There are a couple different replicators that refer business to me and send customers my direction. They do this because I have had less than 1 in 500 pre-masters (golds ready for replication) ever exhibit any problem for the replicator. I run a fairly extensive testing and verification process on each of the discs I send to a replicator - and write the discs to their equipment's specifications.Today, as CD writers become more popular, and thus less expensive, more and more people are requesting them with new systems or as upgrades to older systems. There are only two types of people that will likely read this section - those who have CD-writers and have had some problems, and those that are thinking about getting a CD writer and are needing some direction. I hope this section can and will help both type of people. If answers to your questions are not here, please feel free to email me at: terry@helpus.com
There are different "grades" or quality levels in every type of product in the world. Short of the Rolls Royce, and a few other limited production products on the market, nothing is absolutely 100% perfect. The more, faster, and less expensive products become, the higher probability for errors, flaws, and slight imperfections. With CDR's there are three distinctly different primary "classes" of CDR's (CD ROM recordable) or Blank, writable CD's... also known as "Gold's.Fact: These "classes" are:
It doesn't really matter what is on the TOP of the CD (99% of the time)... the bottom of the CDR or the writable surface, has a distinct color - the bottom is the most important, and critical.Gold is the best, Blue second best, and the Green is least expensive. In addition, there are multiple levels in each of the colors... grade A, B, and C respectively. Obviously, Grade A Gold-Gold's are the best, capable of 8x write speeds, Blue-Gold's are generally 4x write capable, and Green-Gold's are 2x maximum write speed. It has to do with the type of medium, quality of medium, density of the write lasers, and the reflectivity.The top of the CDR does have some bearing at times - if it is scratched (from ball point pen or carelessness), bubbles (from heat or manufacturer flaws), are is written on with a highly absorbent felt tip pen (which blocks the reflectivity) then you have wasted the CDR. It will have flaws - loss of data in the affected areas, and potentially not allow access to any information beyond that spot. Of course, you never want to have any flaws in a production pre-master - as those flaws can, when in the "real" media, create a completely different type of problem for each and every person that gets the CD.The price on CDR's continue to drop... the average street price for Green's are $0.75 to $3.50, Blue's $0.85 to $4.50, and Gold's seem to be holding at $1.00 to $3.00 per disc. Of course, all of this depends on the brand name stamped on the disc, the quality of the disc, the packaging, and even how many the company selling the "Gold's" purchased and how they were shipped. More retail outlets are carrying the discs (such as Cost-Co, Future Shop, Fred Meyer's, Office Depot, Office Max, Sam's Club, Staples, and many others). I personally think the price will hold at the $1 range on the low end, and $2 to $3 on the high end for at least another year or two.
Why would I want a CD ROM burner - or CD Writer?First, it is a great archival means for data - documents, accounting information, graphics, creations. Many people back up the older data files to CDR's so they can free up hard drive space. While others, such as accountants and lawyers, use the CDR as a client file archive. Unless it has changed, CDR's have been accepted as "tamper-proof" means of filing records, and retrieval by many judges and government agencies.Second, backing up valuable discs and protecting your investment. Say you have a program that you use all of the time - and can legally put on other computers. You can make an exact duplicate of that CD for backup purposes, so you don't have to worry about forgetting your disc in your car on a blistering hot day and getting it ruined. I know other people that backup their CD's (both data and audio) and work from those, placing their originals in a safety deposit box. Now their employees can't "misplace," sell or trade the originals. When you start messing around with tens of thousands of dollars in software you will understand their logic. After a building fire and burglary, they will never lose all of their software - or data - ever again.I have the Ricoh CDR-W. It is interesting, and I do like it. However... I'm still in the testing phases. The "Direct CD" where you can use a CDRW disc as a floppy or slow hard disk, formats the disc out to only 457MB - using 200 MB for the FAT tables and file management. So don't expect a full 650MB in read/write mode. Also, formatting the disc for read/write is SLOWWWWW (nearly 7 hours - over night). The backup program can compress above 1.3 Gigs of Data on the 650MB disc, and is capable of spanning multiple CD's. That is a great feature, and one a like a lot better than the tape drives of the past. The data copying works very good; however, the audio copying is a major problem - still can't get it to work correctly... haven't yet determined WHY.
Questions or comments can be directed to Terry Mercer.
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Copyright © 1993 through 2000 T.E. Mercer and PBG, All rights reserved.
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