Alternate route when printing disks and covers

[Kelly Huffaker]

For those in the wedding industry, is there any companies out there that print on DVD's? I was wondering because I've had such a headache with my Artisan 50 printer which is what I use to print onto the DVD's due to the clogs. I know Walmart and Costco don't do such a service.

[Nigel Barker]

Small run duplicate & print DVDs or Blu-rays is now very cheap e.g. Prices for CD Duplication and DVD Duplication However very small runs are proportionally much more expensive per disc. Getting 5 copies duplicated, printed & put in a case with a 4 page colour booklet & shrink wrapped in cellophane & shipped to you can cost about £37/$47 i.e. $10 each but 50 copies will only cost about £110/$140 i.e. less than $3 each. TBH even for very small runs it's very reasonably priced at $10 per disc for a very professional looking product.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Kelly

For some reason the Artisan 50 has had plenty of reports of clogging. I'm running an Artisan 720 and also a 730 and they are brilliant ..so far I've printed maybe 300 disks and covers with the 720 and never an issue... Here just getting something like 6 disks done from commercial houses is way too expensive and they are also reluctant as they make little money so your job is put off in favour of the big order guy!!

I would invest in a 730 ....they certainly have been problem free for me and durable too!! I did a run of nearly 200 disks followed by 200 A4 size covers in January and it just churned them out!!

Chris

[Kyle Root]

I use an Artisan 835 and love it. Been using it since Feb 2011 with absolutely no problems.

In fact, I just got done duplicating 100 DVDs on my computer (1 disc at a time - took 3 days) and printed all 100 on this Epson printer. (This was a very simple DVD label though in black text only and I only used maybe 20% of my black ink on all 100)

Normally, I only do 1 to 3 full color DVDs for weddings.

I think a popular place stateside is Disc Makers, but I've heard of people going in for short runs and it taking several weeks... 6-8 weeks in some cases last year.

I know they're not cheap, but the AIO Epson printers have been great based on my findings. In fact, my dad just bought the new 837 series 2 weeks ago and loves his too.

[Kyle Root]

Regarding the 200 wrappers that Chris mentioned: I had designed this pretty slick wrapper for these 100 discs - full color and the works... for a church's July 4th celebration DVD they hired me to put together.

It would have cost me some major $$ to print these full color wrappers myself.

I put the jpg on a thumbdrive and went down to Staples (office supply store chain), and they printed out a copy on letter size and trimmed it for me. It looked very very good. I was really surprized. The only way I could have gotten a better print at home was to use photo glossy paper (Which I wasn't about to do for these 100 because it simply wasn't necessary).

So, I had Staples print and trim them for me, for $0.59 each. It worked perfectly, and the church was blown away by the thing.

As a side note, I normally design my wrappers in Photoshop on letter size and then trim with a paper cutter. I used NEATO perforated wrappers on A4 paper for years, but find that it's more cost effective and looks better to simply trim the letter sized sheets for the DVD cases.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Kyle

I also supply the bride 3 x double DVD sets so there is just 3 sleeves to print. I take around 6 still shots at the wedding and use those for the cover ...I found that using glossy paper made the sleeves a bit stiff so I used Epson Matte Premium InkJet paper and because the DVD cases already have a clear plastic sleeve the cover in matte looks glossy anyway. A standard sleeve is a bit smaller than our A4 paper here so I have a template made in Real Draw that I fit my pics into and just change the text and then export as a JPEG and print using Windows Print Wizard and they work great.

The one thing that makes the Epson AIO printers work well is not to use cheap generic inks..that's what killed my old R210 printer..it used to block up quickly..I have a supplier on eBay that gets me the six pack at cartridges for $39.95 and they last a good few months. I think if you also use your printer often it stops any ink clogging and mine is used almost daily!! My only minor issue is that with full colour printing it always uses up the Light Cyan before all the others!!
I didn't want an AIO but the scanner is useful and the copy facility is great too!!!

Chris

[Rickey Brillantes]

kelly, I use to print my covers using an Epson glossy paper that is so thick that as Chris said it makes the cover sleeves a bit stiff, that you cant barely close it, since then I always print my paper sleeves thru Kinkos, and I use text glossy paper, it's thickness and quality print is like a magazine paper, I design my covers in Illustrator and save it as PDF and put it in a USB sticks, print for one copy is 89 cents on letter size paper.

I'll be upgrading all my DVD packaging soon using the link below, a bit more expensive but it's nice to keep, I'll just past the cost to my clients. Besides the Amaray DVD case cracks in period of time.

http://www.whcc.com/products/boxes-and-cases/cd-cases/

[Eric Olson]

Originally Posted by Kelly Huffaker

For those in the wedding industry, is there any companies out there that print on DVD's? I was wondering because I've had such a headache with my Artisan 50 printer which is what I use to print onto the DVD's due to the clogs. I know Walmart and Costco don't do such a service.

You can also upload the artwork and disk image to Amazon CreateSpace and then buy single copy DVDs which are manufactured on demand.

https://www.createspace.com/

You could probably market the availability of an Amazon DVD purchasing link for additional copies for relatives as a wedding package feature. I think it is possible to create a private purchasing link.