I'm going to be getting a few thousand DVD's made up soon and may be sending these to china to be done.

My question is really about the quality of replicated or duplicated DVD's. To get the absolute best quality from my video files, would I be best to give them a DVD master disc and they just copy from that - or should I give them the video files for them to encode and burn?

I have seen a disc that someone else in my filed created and the quality was exceptional - it almost looked Blu-Ray, but it was standard DVD. I'm certain that his must have been processed in such a way that perhaps encoded it for retail discs - I really don't know, just guessing.

Can anyone perhaps shed some light or have any experience on this?

Martin,
Replicated DVDs will give better performance than duplicated. You can use a higher bit-rate to encode your master and have much better DVD player compatibility. I have no experience with China DVD manufacturers but, have had 1,000s made by discmakers.com. I would visit their site at Customer Support - CD / DVD Duplication, CD / DVD Manufacturing, CD / DVD Replication by Disc Makers (http://www.discmakers.com/techsupport/custsupport.asp) and read thru some of the technical specifications for DVD masters, artwork, packaging, DVD licensing etc. They also do encoding and authoring. I am a DIY guy so I learned how to do all the preparation myself.

IMO coordinating a project is pretty intensive, I have a local discmakers office in Atlanta that helps me with any problems. You can take it for what it is worth but I would never attempt to undertake such a project with a company out of my country unless I had a reliable personal contact as well as recommendations from others . As a comparison for cost, my last batch of 1,000 DVDs' cost $1.25 each.

You can certainly provide them with a DVD and they can take it from there. Just keep in mind that when they replicate it you will be getting an exact copy of what you gave them. There will be no improvment in quality. However, if you provide them with files, their encoding process will probably produce a better result then what most consumers are using.

thanks guys - just what I thought.

cheers