Emedia Professional , Jan 1, 1999 by Hugh Bennett
Of all of the kinds of dedicated CD duplication equipment available, standalone multi-recorder towers have been with us the longest. As a result, product changes over the last year have been more evolutionary than revolutionary with refinements made in simplicity and reliability plus added features to provide increased flexibility and expandability.
A happy outcome in standalone tower systems--easily the most popular category of duplicator hardware--is that while the number of recorders integrated into each tower continues to increase, steeply declining 4X recorder prices and fierce competition have substantially lowered overall system prices. Seven- and eight-recorder configurations are now common in larger units and these systems sell for thousands of dollars less than five- and six-recorder models of only a year ago. Improvements in chaining technology permit massively parallel systems to duplicate hundreds of discs simultaneously. Features, such as multiple disc images on hard drives, audio read-back verification, and digital and analog audio importation that were once the domain of only expensive host-base systems, are now available in some economical standalone devices.
The market for smaller duplicators is also steadily growing with impressive demand for compact one-to-one copiers and slightly larger units housing up to four recorders. Given the recent introductions of inexpensive 4X EIDE/ATAPI recorders, the declining costs of smaller systems will continue to push them into the corporate market where floppy diskette duplicators never really found a home.
DISC-HANDLING
One area that has grown nearly as dramatically as the tower scene is automated solutions. Once limited to clumsy single-recorder caddy autoloaders fashioned on adapted floppy diskette duplicators, automation has largely moved to pick-and-place robots and other bare disc-handling systems.
In addition to great convenience for disc loading and unloading, bare disc equipment offers superior flexibility by allowing the incorporation of inline printing capability. The disc throughput bar has been raised to the point where single-recorder autoloaders have become just entry-level products, two-to-four-recorder systems are considered mainstream, and systems boasting seven or more recorders are promoted for high-volume applications and custom disc production. As with tower systems, expect declining prices and improvements in functionality for automated solutions in 1999.
JUKEBOXES: A DAY LATE AND A DOLLAR SHORT
One disturbing trend in CD-R duplication is the reorienting of existing products ill-suited for production chores. Particularly visible are CD jukeboxes re-purposed as production systems.
To the duplication ingenue, a production jukebox may seem wonderful, but further investigation will make it obvious that jukeboxes are poor solutions compared to the other automation options currently available. Designed as load-and-leave devices, jukeboxes are extremely inefficient when it comes to the constant disc handling of duplication and custom production applications. Since jukeboxes will do the job, they are not bad solutions per se; the market has simply moved beyond them.
DISC LABELING
Generally speaking, printing speed, and quality continue to improve thanks to the ongoing advances in consumer-oriented inkjet technology. Next-generation inkjet engines that have found their way into the CD-R market include Epson's impressive 1440 x 720dpi Stylus Photo 700 and Canon's 1200 x 600dpi BJC-7000. By using smaller high-resolution nozzles and new six- and seven-color bi-level ink formulations, the units produce printed text that is significantly sharper and graphics that show far less banding than has been the case in the past. Enhancements in overall image quality can also be attributed to the latest generation of silver and white inkjet printable media available from an increasing number of vendors. Several characteristics remain disappointing, however, such as slow drying times and limited moisture resistance due to the lack of pigmented inks.
Aware of the limitations of manual carrier-based disc loading systems, a few vendors have introduced tray-loading mechanisms that greatly improve ease of use and allow for high-volume labeling by integrating printers into production systems as well as into standalone autoloading robotics.
For serious production printing, the solution of choice remains thermal transfer technology with its relatively high speed and low consumable cost. However, with only one printer manufacturer currently involved--Rimage Corporation--there has been virtually no innovation. The market, however, is clamoring for higher resolution and the color capability that the Rimage printer lacks, so at least one competitor is rumored to be interested in the technology, but for the moment, disc printing is very much as case of what you see is what you get. Despite all this, what I find rather funny is that sticky labels and ink pens at a quarter apiece still seem to solve many requirements in the real world.
Given current and future technological improvements, there's no arguing that CD-R duplication and custom disc production indeed has come of age and the sky seems to be the limit of what the future has in store.
Hugh Bennett (hugh_bennett@compuserve.com), an EMedia Professional contributing editor and columnist for The CD Writer, is president of Forget Me Not Information Systems (www.forgetmenot.on.ca), a company based in London, Ontario, Canada offering CD and DVD-ROM recording, replication, and consulting services as well as CD-R/RW and DVD-R/RAM hardware, duplication systems, software, and blank media sales.
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