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What is a DVD?
DVD is an optical disc storage technology. DVD is bigger and faster than CD (and CD ROM) and its data storage can hold cinema quality audio and video, images, and computer file data. DVD encompasses home entertainment, computers, and business information in a single digital format. DVD has replaced laserdisc and should eventually replace videotape, audio CD and CD-ROM.
With the support of all major electronics corporations, cinema and music production companies DVD has become the most successfully electronics product for consumers worldwide. DVD players and DVD ROM drives in PCs have become standard household appliances over the last 7 years with many businesses harnessing the widely available technology of writeable DVD's.
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What are regional codes?
The concept of creating "regional codes" was mainly to give the film production studios commercial control over the geographical locations and times that their films would be released. With many Hollywood productions hitting the shelves in US stores at the same time as the cinemas in Europe are showing the films first time round something had to be done to control access. This lead to certain geographical regions having only DVD players that would play DVD Videos meant for that region only.
Each player is given a code for the geographical region in which it's sold. The player will only play discs that are not coded for its region. Meaning that discs purchased abroad that are formatted for a different region simply will not be viewable.

There are seven recognized regions:
1: U.S., Canada, U.S. Territories
2: Japan, Europe, South Africa, and Middle East (including Egypt)
3: Southeast Asia and East Asia (including Hong Kong)
4: Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean
5: Eastern Europe (Former Soviet Union), Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia
6: China
7: Reserved
8: Special international venues (such as for air travel or sea cruises, etc.)
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What is a dual-layer disc?
Dual layer discs have two layers containing data. The first layer is semi transparent which allows the laser to see through to the second layer and access its data. This means that a dual layer disc can hold almost twice as much data as a single layer disc. Dual layer discs are now widely used for particularly long films and can be recognized by their gold color and 2 serial numbers on one side.
Dual layer DVD's have become so widely used that most modern DVD players now support the format.
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What is a hybrid DVD?
A hybrid DVD is a term used to define DVD's that offer more than 1 purpose. This could mean that the DVD is authored to run on both Mac and Windows platforms or it could mean that the DVD is authored in such a way that it will play video when used inside a DVD player but when used in a DVD drive of a PC might contain software applications and data files. It could even be that the DVD offers all of the above plus some other features.
The term "Hybrid" simply means that its more than your single purpose DVD. Hybrid DVD's often contain a multitude of content that can be tricky to author.
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What are the sizes and capacities of DVD?
In the table below the terms SS/DS means single-sided/double-sided. SL/DL/ML means single-layer/dual-layer/mixed-layer (mixed means single layer on one side, dual layer on the other side) and gig means gigabytes. The "hours" mentioned are for video.
DVD-5 (12 cm, SS/SL) 4.37 gig of data, over 2 hours of video
DVD-9 (12 cm, SS/DL) 7.95 gig , about 4 hours
DVD-10 (12 cm, DS/SL) 8.74 gig about 4.5 hours
DVD-14 (12 cm, DS/ML) 12.32 gig about 6.5 hours
DVD-18 (12 cm, DS/DL) 15.90 gig over 8 hours
DVD-1 (8 cm, SS/SL) 1.36 gig about half an hour
DVD-2 (8 cm, SS/DL) 2.47 gig about 1.3 hours
DVD-3 (8 cm, DS/SL) 2.72 gig about 1.4 hours
DVD-4 (8 cm, DS/DL) 4.95 gig , about 2.5 hours
DVD-R 1.0 (12 cm, SS/SL) 3.68 gig
DVD-R 2.0 (12 cm, SS/SL) 4.37 gig
DVD-R 2.0 (12 cm, DS/SL) 8.75 gig
DVD-RW 2.0 (12 cm, SS/SL) 4.37 gig
DVD-RW 2.0 (12 cm, DS/SL) 8.75 gig
DVD+R 2.0 (12 cm, SS/SL) 4.37 gig
DVD+R 2.0 (12 cm, DS/SL) 8.75 gig
DVD+RW 2.0 (12 cm, SS/SL) 4.37 gig
DVD+RW 2.0 (12 cm, DS/SL) 8.75 gig
DVD-RAM 1.0 (12 cm, SS/SL) 2.40 gig
DVD-RAM 1.0 (12 cm, DS/SL) 4.80 gig
DVD-RAM 2.0 (12 cm, SS/SL) 4.37 gig
DVD-RAM 2.0 (12 cm, DS/SL) 8.75 gig
DVD-RAM 2.0 (8 cm, SS/SL) 1.36 gig
DVD-RAM 2.0 (8 cm, DS/SL) 2.47 gig
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What are Blu-Ray Discs (BD)?
Blu-ray, also known as Blu-ray Disc (BD) is the name of a next-generation optical disc format jointly developed by thirteen leading consumer electronics and pc companies (Dell, Hitachi, HP, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, TDK and Thomson). The format was developed to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high-definition television (HDTV). Blu-ray makes it possible to record over 2 hours of HDTV, or more than 13 hours of SDTV on a 25GB disc. There are also plans for higher capacity discs that are expected to hold up to 50GB of data.


While current optical disc technologies such as DVD, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD-RAM use a red laser to read and write data, the new format uses a blue laser instead, hence the name Blu-ray. The benefit of using a blue laser is that it has a shorter wavelength (405 nanometer) than a red laser (650 nanometer), which means that it's possible to focus the laser beam with even greater precision. This allows data to be packed more tightly on the disc and makes it possible to fit more data on the same size disc. Despite the different type of lasers used, Blu-ray Disc recorders can be made backwards compatible with current red-laser technologies and allow playback of CDs and DVD's.
As HDTV becomes more widespread, the consumer demand for recording HDTV programming will rise. Blu-ray was designed with this application in mind and enables direct recording of the MPEG-2 TS (Transport Stream) used by digital broadcasts, which makes it highly compatible with global standards for digital television. This means that HDTV broadcasts can be recorded directly to the disc without any extra processing or quality loss. To handle the increased amount of data required for HDTV, Blu-ray employs a 36Mbps data transfer rate, which is more than enough to record and playback HDTV while maintaining the original picture quality. In addition, by fully utilizing an optical discs random accessing features, it's possible to playback video on a disc while simultaneously recording high-definition video.
Blu-ray is expected to replace VCRs and current DVD technology within a few years. The format is also likely to become a standard for PC data storage and high-definition movies in the future.
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What is DVD-R and DVD-RW?
DVD-R/W was the first DVD recording format released that was compatible with standalone DVD Players.
DVD-R is a non-rewriteable format and it is compatible with about 93% of all DVD Players and most DVD-ROMs. DVD-RW is a rewriteable format and it is compatible with about 80% of all DVD Players and most DVD-ROMs.
DVD-R/W supports single side 4.37 computer GB* DVD's (called DVD-5) and double sided 8.75 computer GB* DVD's (called DVD-10).
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What is DVD+R and DVD+RW?
DVD+R/W has some "better" features than DVD-R/W such as lossless linking and both CAV and CLV writing. DVD+R is a non-rewriteable format and it is compatible with about 89% of all DVD Players and most DVD-ROMs. DVD+RW is a rewriteable format and is compatible with about 79% of all DVD Players and most DVD-ROMs.
DVD+R/W supports single side 4.37 computer GB* DVD's(called DVD-5) and double side 8.75 computer GB* DVD's(called DVD-10).
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How long does the average DVD duplication job take to complete?
Duplication of DVD-R will take a max of 5 days
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Do I need to pay in advance for your DVD duplication services?
Yes, we accept Amex, MC, Visa or Discover Cards
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How do you error check my master DVD?
Such additional checks are not necessary since the production criteria introduced by Phillips means that there are various QC stages during production (of pressed disc) that will not allow problems to occur, and they never do. Occasional human error has happened whereby printers put wrong on body print on wrong data but only a handful of times in 8 years. With CD-R and DVD-R manufactured in house we test discs against master after writing data to them, again it’s failsafe!
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What's a Glass Master?
Replication involves copying the information written on your original master onto a “glass master.” The glass master is then used to make a stamper mold. This mold is used to stamp the data from the original onto injection-molded DVD-ROM or CD-ROM discs as they dry. The copies are then lacquered, metallised, and packaged.
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Next we explore the difference between DVD Replication & DVD Duplication