Why am I getting such high failure rates on my duplications?

According to Amber Yu at ILY Enterprise, manufacturers of Spartan DVD, Blu-ray and CD duplicator towers, high failure rates usually have to do with the condition of the master disc.This could be the issue even if you can play and read the master disc, because disc players only spin at 1X speed. During the burn process, the reader has to spin the disc at a much higher rate in order to match the duplicating speed. At high speeds the quality of the disc is magnified, making it essential to have a high quality master. So, your first step should be to remake your master.


Other causes of a high failure rate include:

• Having outdated firmware/drivers. Visit the manufacturer's Web site and make sure you've downloaded and installed the latest drivers.
• Using the wrong disc for your recording speed. The rule of thumb is you can record at a slower speed than what your disc is rated for (so you could record at 8X speed on a 16X disc) but you can't always record at a faster speed.
• Using a commercial grade disc. High quality, professional grade discs have lower errors rates, which mean fewer coasters.

Finally, you can always touch base with your machine's manufacturer. Microboards and Primera, have outstanding Web sites that can help you troubleshoot your machine. Other manufacturers, like ILY, provide phone support for the life of your machine.

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