How Commercial CDs are Made

[htmlmasterdave]

Does anyone know how they are made? I am just curious. How fast are the machines that make them, and what are they called? There have got to be other people who are curious 😉

 

[Daovonnaex]

<< Does anyone know how they are made? I am just curious. How fast are the machines that make them, and what are they called? There have got to be other people who are curious 😉 >>

To the best of my knowledge, they're fairly slow for quality purpose and instead focus on massive volume.

 

[htmlmasterdave]

Oh, ok, cool. Do you know what the machines are called?

 

[Daovonnaex]

<< Oh, ok, cool. Do you know what the machines are called? >>

Sorry, but no. That was speculation on my part.

 

[nortexoid]

they use a glass master copy, i believe....and the replicating machines vary....some can copy 100+ cds at a time, others cannot...i'm not sure how fast they are tho

 

[Maniac9127]

Take a look here, it's better than I could ever explain it 😱. I'm pretty sure the machine they use to make the CDs themselves is a CD press or CD stamper, and there are a few other machines they use to finish the CD once that's done.

 

[LordOfAll]

something like this. Basically a buch of cd-r burners that are autoloaded.

Duplicator

 

[Viper GTS]

<< something like this. Basically a buch of cd-r burners that are autoloaded.

Duplicator >>



Commercial CD's are not burned, they are pressed.

Viper GTS

 

[Davegod]

my guess is it would depends on volume, same as any business production assembly.

I would imagine for something like MS Windows, where they really need an awful lot of CD's, there would be rather large machines with very large capacity. such large machines (total speculation BTW, but applying general production principles) have a high initial cost and 'tooling' cost (i.e. costs a lot each time you change whats in the CD, but because of the large number of CD's this is broken down to minimal per unit cost. Small batches on the other hand proly done with smaller machines, maybe just a hundred or whatever at a time. Usually for small numbers probably the pruduction is contracted out, whereas larger companies would have their own productionb facilities, same as a newspaper/magazine parent company will have their own printing uh, factory, whereas the local rag is usually done by some local printer who also handles jobs for other companies literature etc.

 

[Pariah]

This is more the type of machinery used to duplicate CD's from glass masters:

plant

Doesn't carry much resemblance to your standard CDR drive.

 

[htmlmasterdave]

Thanks everyone, that sure satisfied my curiousity 🙂