What is the difference between replication & duplication?
Replication is the process of making a glass master from a pre-mastered image, creating a series of stampers from the master, then pressing discs with the stampers by injection molding raw polycarbonate plastic. Replication requires millions of dollars worth of equipment, a specialized dust-free environment, and highly-trained technicians. Because of the initial set-up cost, it is simply too expensive to manufacture any quantity less than 500. Duplication is the process that uses a pre-manufactured CD-R or DVD-R which has a laser sensitive organic dye layer embedded under the reflective layer. During the recording process, a laser beam “burns” the vegetable dye so that some parts reflect light and some parts absorb the incoming light. Duplication produces many copies of a disc at once. Duplication uses CD-R or DVD-R media, and usually a bank of recorders controlled by a single processor. This method is best for short runs (less than 500).
