www.discdupe.org - email: brk@discdupe.org

The IDDA, through the efforts of Kildare Borrows organized a most successful conference on disc and media duplicating at MEDIATECH Showcase & Conference 2007 Barcelona. There were between 20 and 40 attendees for the sessions. There was only one local Spanish attendee, and this was probably because is would not be easy for most local duplicators to follow a technical presentation in a foreign language .

The IDDA is therefore planning to run some sessions in the local language when in a non-English speaking country. The IDDA will also be translating and publishing most of this website in both Italian and Spanish, and any other language where a member is prepared to offer translating.

As the PowerPoint presentations were only offered by the speakers to attendees, we will not be offering them on our website. Any attendee who wants copies of the PowerPoint presentations just needs to email brk@discdupe.org and we will send the presentations to them.

Brief Report on the Program

Preloaded Flash memory is going to be big.
Budget for $.03 fee for every disc containing MPEG-2.
Recordable DVD video copy protection is available now.

Industrial size inkjet printing is the beginning of the answer to the duplicator's prayers.

·     HiDef Optical Formats. Jean-Luc Renaud. Publisher/Editor-in-Chief: Globalcom Ltd.  Jean-Luc gave an well researched and informative presentation both trends and on the types of high density media.

·     USB/Flash Media Formats. Olaf Meier. Managing Director: Altec ComputerSysteme GmbH. Olaf gave an illuminating presentation on the types of solid state memory, and described some automatic and manual memory card duplicators. The trend figures were very impressive.

·     Recordable Media Licensing/the Philips VEEZA program. Philips IP & Standards. Robin Boxall, an attorney with Philips described the rather complicated VEEZA program with special shipping labels and logos to ensure compliance with royalty payments. Most of the major recordable manufacturers have already come on board. As the patent on CD-R expires in 2008 in the USA, VEEZA will soon be used to ensure compliance on recordable DVD media.
·     MPEG-2 and MPEG LA. Dean Skandis described the MPEG LA program where the patent holders for content creation as a group will collect a royalty fee of US.03 on very disc that carries MPEG-2 content. This fee is payable for years back, and MPEG LA will need to consider a plan for duplicators who in many cases do not know nor keep records to show which media uses MPEG-2.

New Products & Processes Showcase
·     Copy Protection & Content Control, Mathew Gilliat-Smith: CEO, Fortium Technologies Ltd. Mathew described Fortium's new DVD DRM software, which has been tested thoroughly by independent labs and found to be 100% compatible with players. This technology has not been cracked, unlike CSS, and Fortium are prepared with at least 2 updates should anyone succeed in breaking security. Duplicators can offer this Copy Protection today, just requiring signing of a Licensing agreement, and downloading of the software, then paying Fortium's per unit fees. GREAT PRODUCT.
·      Advances in high-volume digital ink-jet disc printing. Ron Goodwin: VP Marketing Worldwide, Tapematic srl. This heralds a major change for the disc printing industry. The 2PRINT machine uses industrial strength inkjet print head, that need replacing less than once a year. The printers start at about US$300,000, (there are other incorrect reports of lower prices) can do from 800 - 1200 discs an hour, and require no messy films, screens, plates, or skilled tradesmen. It brings high volume disc decorating into the office or shop environment. With other inkjet printers announced by Sun/Copytrax at much higher price and others whispered, we can expect rapid price and performance drops. The quality of the prints in good, with the Sun/Copytrax possibly smoother, but without comparative samples not a reliable judgment. With new inks and UV curing, the print does not SMEAR if moistened. I will safely predict that this is the technology of the near future. Do not buy any more screen printers, unless you can recover the costs in a very few years.
·     New Disc Autoloader Duplicators. Udo Noll, Managing Director: Ram Europe GmbH. Udo described how they have designed their own technology based around the TEAC printer. The good news is that there is now a ribbon that works with the TEAC that does not require special media.
·     Simple Flash Duplicating solutions. Bernhard Kirschner: CEO, CD-ROM Services PL. It works, its cheap, its available under Special Offers.
Sonic Solutions Showcase. Sonic DVD on Demand. John Newman: VP European Operations, Sonic Solutions. This was for me a big disappointment. Yes they do have a system (software) that burns CSS protect on video discs. The Sonic concept is to take advantage of the long tail, possible up to 25% of DVD revenue using Sonic technology. But Sonic want $50,000 per year for use of the software, and you may need to pay $7,500 pa for the CSS keys. But although CSS is OK with the MPA, they have not indicated any willingness to allow their titles to be available. The numbers don't work anyway. If you want to keep 30,000 titles on site, at about 7GB per title, (the Sonic technology even adds about 300MB per title,) you would require 200 Terabytes of storage, about 600 x 350MB hard drives, or some other storage system, with a few heat, space and networking problems. Of course you could store the titles in a central secure facility, but do the numbers on transferring 7GB on even a fast internet connection. And how Sonic expect to use the technology for home burning when you need to send 7GB over home broadband, when many plans surcharge over 1GB per month. I hope I'm wrong, hope I can be corrected. Sonic's suggestion is that duplicators will approach local TV stations to burn short runs of their broadcasts on DVD for sale. A good plan, but lots of educating and selling to make a few, maybe even a lot of extra burns, but not with a $50,000 annul fee, and offering CSS that is broken software. The MPA may love CSS, but there are better DRM solutions.
·         Recycling and Green concerns for Duplicators. Bernhard Kirschner: President, IDDA. Simply recycling may be a bit of extra work, the resources used in recycling, transport etc., may nullify the benefit, but we should do it to grow the facilities, get a feel good feeling, and if your clients bring all their old media and maybe save a bit more resources by bringing you a job, and any accompanying publicity or PR can't hurt.
·      Franco Leoni of Adeste was late entrant, showing an template with carefully measured time studies that can be used to help determine the comparative cost of various processes. A very useful item that makes attending the next IDDA conference worthwhile if you are thinking of any equipment purchase.
·      IDDA future programs. We will be running two conference morning sessions on Tuesday 15 May, and Wednesday 16 May 2007 at MEDIA-TECH EXPO, Long Beach, California.

A draft program will be published by 17 April 2007.
MEDIA-TECH are also offering 'buddy booths', where two smaller organizations co-operatively share a booth, so that only one staff member is required. It saves booth costs, it saves labor and it saves hotel/transport costs.

PLAN TO BE THERE!
There will be updates on big inkjet printers, with working machines on the floor, we will have a factory tour for those who missed out last October, and plenty of opportunities to meet disc duplicators from around the world and gain invaluable learning.

Our members networking dinner on Tuesday evening went on until late, with new friendships being made.

The opinions expressed here are those of Bernhard Kirschner, IDDA President and not necessarily those of the IDDA and its members.