Tips for Preparing a Master CD or DVD

The master CD or DVD disc is the disc you will provide to your CD or DVD vendor for either replication or duplication of the media. Below are some tips designed to help you create a high quality master disc:

1. Always purchase the highest quality media that you can find, because all media isn't the same. Take your time, do your research, then buy a brand that will produce a high quality disc every single time you duplicate or replicate.

2. Avoid copying from a network source. Source files for your disk that are on a network drive, should be copied to your local disk before you burn a disc. If the files can't be moved to your local drive, try using the copy to hard drive first feature. By using this method, your burning software will create a temporary image file during the burning process. Once the burning has been completed, the temporary file will be deleted.

3. When burning on a laptop computer, always make sure the battery is fully charged. The fluctuations that will occur in the available battery power may cause you to have poor results in your duplication.

4. It is very important to always make sure that you finalize your disc. If you don't finalize, the disc won't play back. Finalizing will also help increase the reading capability in other CD-ROM drives.

5. Never use the packet writing method to burn a master disc. This method is very common with burning drives that have re-writing capabilities. Using this method will produce discs that can't be read on many CD-ROM drives.

6. Be careful to avoid any type of impact or movement of the drive during burning. Doing so can cause the laser to skip or jump tracks, which will lead to errors or a bad disc.

7. If the "burn proof" feature is available us it. This feature allows the drive to slow the burn speed in the event the computer can't supply the data fast enough. Although this can increase the burn time, the quality of the disc will be much better.

8. Avoid having multiple applications open when burning, especially those that access the Internet or a network. This can prevent your computer's ability to supply data to the burner drive at the necessary rate.