Anyone who has burned CDs in the past has had to have encountered this problem - your CD doesn't want to play in certain CD players. You've probably tried switching to a different brand of disks, switching the writing speed of your CD burning software, and yet nothing seems to work.
Most professional CDs that are purchased from a retail outlet such as Circuit City or Best Buy works in any type of CD player, which probably makes you wonder what they are doing that your not. All of us wonder this, especially when out duplicated CDs don't want to play back like they should.
Much to the contrary, it's because the music industry burns their CDs differently. Instead of simply duplicating CDs, the music industry chooses to replicate CDs. Even though the terminology may seem synonymous, the process is actually totally different.
CD replication is used for the mass production of CDs, which is normally more than 500. Instead of writing the data to a CD using a laser as with duplication, CD replication uses a glass master to stamp (or press) the data onto the disc. This helps to eliminate almost all of the issues associated with playability that are encountered when burning CDs at home. CD replication is a far superior process of burning CDs.
Important to note, is the superior quality of CDs that are pressed using replication doesn't come cheap. Even when using independant CD duplication companies such as Absolute Disc or Oasis, there is still going to be a very high cost associated with the replication of disks.
For your next project, try having your CDs replicated rather than duplicated. This will ensure your project is very high quality, even though you'll need to order more than 500 CDs to recive this process.
