About DVD & CD Production

For those who have never been involved in DVD & CD production before, the process can seem a little confusing.  We don’t expect our clients to know about everything about mastering, manufacturing and printing and other areas of producing CD’s , that is what we are here for.

We have been doing this allot longer than most, over 20 years now, and the company directors have been the industry longer than that. Over this time we have built up a great deal of experience in all aspects of mastering, manufacturing , printing for CD, DVD and Vinyl. All of our prices include our advice and experience, and it is hard to put a price on that.

We know you probably have lots of questions you want to ask about DVD / CD production, and below you will find answers to the most common ones. You will also find in depth articles on our blog about mastering, print and pressing, and would encourage you to have a look.

But most importantly if you would like to speak to a real person, you can pick up the phone and ask us about anything, if it is the most basic or complex of queries, don’t be afraid to ask. For price and sales & production enquiries call 0161 833 0099 and for technical enquires call 0161 833 0089.  Alternatively you can drop a comment below or use the contact form on the right.

DVD & CD Production FAQ’s

We will need your CD master and artwork files supplied to our specifications. Please also include a copy of our order form with all of you contact details

We will check your master and artwork, if they are suitable to go into production we will send you an invoice, once this has been paid we can get your job into production

We can accept payment over the phone by debit card (free of cost) and credit card (subject to a 2% card processing fee), bank transfer, paypal (subject to a 2.5% paypal processing fee) or by cheque (please allow up to 5 working days for cheque clearance)

We can accept masters in various formats. Most people supply masters on CD-R, this should be supplied as “Red Book”, most CD recording software will produce this if the disc is set to record “Disc at Once”.

Please use good grade media and write the disc at low speed (4 speed is preferable, however some writers default to 8 speed), masters should be free or dirt scratches and finger prints and packed into album type jewel cases as this offers the best protection for the disc. Please do not send discs in PVC or card wallets as this can result in damage to the master that might cause the disc to be rejected from glass mastering.

We can also accept masters on Exabyte and Umatic 1630. At the moment the only accept masters over the internet if sent as DDPi with MD5 checksum. You also might want to check out our blog with lots of useful information on supplying Masters for manufacturing

If you are unable to provide a CD master we can create this for you from your supplied audio files. We prefer audio files to be supplied as WAV or AIFF files in 16 bit / 44.1Khz format. We will then compile your master and send you out a reference disc for approval, please contact us for prices. If you are looking for creative mastering, we would be happy to recommend various mastering rooms, depending on your budget.

We prefer to be supplied artwork in high resolution PDF format with all fonts embedded and all images as CMYK and grey scale. You can download specifications for the design layouts for all of our products, you will find the links to download these files next to the prices of the product you require. We can accept artwork in other formats, however there may be a charge to create PDF files from your supplied artwork. If we do any editing to your artwork we will provide you with a PDF proofs for approval before we commence manufacturing. We are constantly updating our blog with tips on supplying artwork, we hope you find it useful.

Afraid we are unable to produce one finished copy for approval before we manufacture your job. As all of our print is produced on large offset printing machines, it is uneconomical to set the machines up to produce one booklet or digi-pack. However we can supply Agfa / Sherpa colour contract proofs printed on cromalin paper for you to check how the actual colours will appear on your finished product. These are charged at £ 25.00 + VAT per A4 page, and must be signed by you and returned to us before we can print your job.

Yes we can. If you supply us with the images and the text you require we can lay these out for you, we provide PDF proofs for you to check before we print your order. Prices for a 4 page booklet, inlay and CD label range from £ 50.00 -£ 90.00+ VAT depending on the complexity of your artwork.

For CD and DVD products, from receipt of master and artwork to our specifications DVD & CD production is about 14-16 calendar days for most products, digi-packs and specialist packaging is approximately 16-18 days. Turnaround time during the busiest periods (leading up to summer and Christmas) can be slightly longer, also allow a couple of extra days and around bank holidays. If we need to do any editing to your master or artwork this will add to the production time. Turnaround for re-orders is approximately 10 days.

For vinyl products you should allow about 14 – 16 days for test pressings and a further 14 – 16 days for delivery of finished product from approval of test pressings

How will my goods be delivered?

All deliveries are made by 48 hour courier, the delivery will be made any time between 9:00AM – 5:30PM. Please note that we are unable to change the delivery address once the goods have been despatched, changes to the delivery address must be made no later than 2 days prior to despatch. If no one is available to to accept the delivery a re-delivery charge may be incurred.