Duplication vs. Replication
Hiring a videographer company will provide you with services that are cost effective and will also give you professional results. Other than the usual production services, a good company can also help you create a distribution plan for your final product. You can distribute the final product as a file or post it to your website or a video site like YouTube. If you decide to distribute your program on disc, you need to know the differences between video replication and duplication. These two terms can mean totally distinct processes when making disc copies.
Replication
When you want to create replications of your video, the process involves copying your finished video onto a glass master. This term refers to the device used in creating the stamper mold which will be used to impress the data from the master copy onto DVDs or compact discs that are freshly injection-molded. The replicated copies are subsequently lacquered, metalized, and packed for distribution. No doubt, replication costs are cheaper when computed on a per disc basis. But the drawback is that you need to make larger orders for replicated videos. Typically, there is a minimum order of 1000 copies for this method of copying video discs.
Duplication
Conversely, your videography company can also recommend duplication as a means to produce multiple copies of your video. Duplication involves copying your original video onto recordable DVD’s or compact discs. This is the conventional way of burning your video onto disc media.
How to Decide
On one hand, replication is faster than duplication because once the factory starts stamping out the discs, they can really use the automation process to its full advantage. But most video production experts don’t have factories to replicate discs. This means you’ll have to account for shipping, set-up time and other time consuming processes to get your order completed.
With duplication, most professional companies will have in-house duplication capabilities. However, process is slower because humans have to manually load the towers with discs and press buttons. Ultimately, duplication is faster because of the lack of set-up time and shipping time required with replication.
If you need 1000 or more discs and you have the time, replication is definitely the way to go. But if you need copies of your video immediately, it is wise to make a small order via duplication and then beef up your copies with a larger order of replicated copies. On the downside, duplication is more expensive than replication on a per disc basis.
There is no visual quality difference between replicated and duplicated discs. However replicated discs are more durable, since they are actually stamped out rather than having a laser impression cut into the disc.
There used to be compatibility problems with duplicated DVD’s not playing in all players and disc drives. However, manufacturers have made tremendous strides in solving compatibility problems and we never have issues with this any more. If you can’t play a disc in your computer, it’s probably because you don’t have enough RAM or the processing chip isn’t fast enough to play it. But always remember, if you’re playing a CD on your computer, make sure you drag the file to your computer to play it to insure that it moves as quickly as possible. Otherwise, the computer has to read the disc drive to play the disc and problems may ensue.
Click here to find out about our duplication and replication services.
