If you package or buy packaged CDs/DVDs in any type of plastic materials, are you aware of CPSC Law (Consumer Product Safety Commission) and why it has been updated?

There have been more and more products made outside the United States being identified as containing very harmful substances after the products were imported in the United States and purchased by consumers.

The raw material stream outside the United States is not regulated and controlled as in the United States.  Business practices in other countries are not at the same level of concern for the end users as in the United States.

The U.S. consumer's thirst for lower and lower priced goods has driven retailers and distributors to purchase goods outside the United States. Unfortunately, this is clearly based more upon price than the quality of the product or the business practices followed by these manufacturers.

Through the efforts of several organizations in the CD/DVD Industry in the United States, it has been documented that CD and DVD plastic packaging products from outside the United State are coming into the United States with these harmful chemicals.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has updated the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) as a result of the many products that have surfaced with safety issues regarding the chemicals contained within these products.

The CShell Product line has been tested and certified to meet this new requirement.

For information about the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), visit their website.

The best CD projects can all come to a crashing halt if there is a problem with the customer’s CD master.  While the entire team at The Dering Corporation prides itself on its high-quality control standards and paying the outmost attention to detail, we can’t possibly know if the data or sound quality of the CD master you send us is correct.  We simply do not have anything for comparison.

To help you get the best out of your replication project, pay close attention to the little things.  Here are some tips to consider, from burning the CD to sending us the final master.

It starts with burning your compact disc master.  We recommend burning the disc using the Disc-At-Once setting (not the Track-At-Once setting) on the CD burning software.  Feel free to call us for help on how to do this. We also suggest you make a copy for yourself. We also recommend burning the CD-R at about half the maximum speed the CD-R is capable of handling. That means if your CD-R is 52x capable burn at 24x. This should give you a slightly higher quality burn.

 After you have finished burning an audio master, please listen to it carefully for sound quality.  Our compact disc replication process will be making an exact clone of that disc.  That means the same sounds from your master will be heard on your final replicated discs.  And if you have a data disc, please test the CD in a few computers for accuracy (be sure to cover the different operating systems your disc is specified to run on – such as Windows XP, Windows Vista, Mac OSX, etc.). 

One other thing to keep in mind is although most CD-Rs are capable of burning 80 minutes of audio, it is best to stay under 79 minutes of total disc time. There are some very old audio players that have a difficult time reading the very outer edge of the disc … so it’s best to be safe!

When handling your disc, always hold the CD master by the edges.  Touching the surfaces can result in scratches, stains, scuffs, or fingerprints which can easily affect the data integrity of the disc.  So when you hand it off to someone to review it, warn them to not put their dirty mitts all over the disc you spent hours working on. 

And finally, when it comes time to ship your CD master to us for replication, protect the CD with packaging that has a hard surface.  You can use a bubble mailer from your shipper of choice.  We also recommend CShells because they are light weight for shipping, but also have a very sturdy two-sided cover for the disc’s protection.  The center-snapping lock ensures your disc won’t pop out in transit. Or simply store your master in a jewel case or similar type of protective case.