Price Rises looming on CD & DVD packages

Despite years of downward price trends it looks likely that world oil prices are going to impact the price of CDs and DVDs in the near future. If you're considering doing a CD or DVD project then it would be an idea to lock it in soon.

• CDs & DVDs of course are made of high quality polycarbonates - all derived from oil
• Printed parts contain oil based inks
• CD & DVD boxes are made of polypropylene  (oil based plastics)
• Raw materials have to be freighted to the plants
• Finished goods are freighted around the country.

We have already experienced several substantial freight increases and it's likely that these increases will now be passed on from manufacturers and will affect overall pricing.

Contact Lyndsey on 08 9375 3902 for current pricing or use the link to request a quote.

TDK to drop CDr and DVDr manufacture

In an interesting product direction shift TDK have plans to drop CDR and DVDr production ( from One to One online) in order to concentrate on newer upcoming technologies
As part of a fundamental restructuring of its recording media business, TDK Corporation is to exit the recordable CD and DVD manufacturing market. The company says it will concentrate its efforts on Blu-ray media and tape storage.

TDK will accelerate its outsourcing of the manufacture of recordable CD and DVD to partner companies, to which it has given access to its technology and media codes. On the optical disc side of the business, TDK will concentrate its own efforts on developing blue-laser media: research and development activities will continue, and manufacturing will take place, at its Tecno plant in Chikumagawa, Japan, where pilot production lines have been established. TDK will also develop its activities in the data storage tape product area, which it describes as another core business.

As a consequence of this announcement, TDK Recording Media Europe is to cease production at its Luxembourg facility; production at Luxembourg is expected to shut down at the end of May. At the time of the announcement, TDK Recording Media Europe had 431 employees, and capacity for 7 million CD-R and 8 million DVDR per month. As well as manufacturing, it also had logistics and head office functions. Around 40 employees are expected to be retained in areas including procurement, product sourcing and customer services.

Jean-Paul Eekhout, corporate strategy director for TDK Europe, told One to One that some capacity will be retained in Luxembourg for minor products, such as 8cm discs. This completes TDK’s withdrawal from recordable CD and DVD manufacturing.

At the end of last year, it announced the closure of its mass production plant in Chikumagawa and the transfer of engineering facilities and Blu-ray disc development to the Tecno plant in the same area. The corporation estimates the costs associated with its withdrawal from manufacturing at 8 billion yen (€56 million).

Further information can be seen at www.tdk.com

MP3 players lead US Consumer Electronics boom

If you are producing audio content for sale then here is something to consider - The five fastest-growing consumer electronics products in the US all use recordable or recorded media of some kind, whether optical disc, memory card, hard disc or some combination of these.

The MP3 player is the fastest-growing US consumer product, according to new research from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). Household penetration has jumped ten percentage points from 15% in 2004 to 25% in 2005. "With the overall CE industry expanding 11% on a revenue basis in 2005, it is understandable that the household penetration of a handful of categories responsible for driving this double-digit revenue growth have gained momentum over the past year," said Sean Wargo, CEA director of industry analysis.

"The MP3 player… is the only category to have tripled growth in a year.” Eight million MP3 players were sold in 2004, but the figure rose massively to 25 million last year. He added that an additional 30 million units will ship in 2006, “which puts MP3 right up there with televisions.” The study found that the five most owned products in US households are televisions (95% household penetration), VCRs (87%), cordless phones (85%), DVD players (81%) and wireless phones (78%).

More industry information and buying trends can be found at www.ce.org

New CD DVD on-disc print method raises the quality.

MicroDry Thermal Printing is a premium high quality heat transfer printing process. It produces discs that are comparable in quality to an offset (manufactured) print process. Complex graphics are reproduced to an excellent standard. Procopy has recently acquired a printer from the USA and is offering free trial discs. Call Mark or Ryan for details and samples. Client feedback below!

Hi Ryan

Thank you - yes this has been approved. Please proceed with the job.

Feedback - the discs look fantastic - so much more professional and sleek looking. I'm liking the new technology!

Cheers

Annie Tam

Marketing Campaign Manager
Snap Franchising Ltd.

Poll: Is piracy killing the music industry?

To participate, please click here.

For an interesting article from ARIA on the 'progress' of downloaded music, please click here.