From the moment your masters arrive at Corporate Disk know that we take care of and obsess over their care. However sometimes things happen that are out of our control. And I am not talking about us tripping down the stairs with the stamper on the way to molding. I am talking about the care you give your master before it reaches our hands. Here are a four simple steps that you can take in the care of your master that your have put your sweat, love and yes money into.
1. Put your master onto quality media
Now don’t get crazy here but think about the media that you are putting your data onto. You have worked hard to create the title and now you need to send it to us. You have some disks from the last person that had your job and you have never seen the brand that is stamped onto the media’s label side (if there is any logo at all). Instead of trusting the media you have never head of use a brand that you recognize. It might cost an extra $.25-$.50 per disk but at this point why go cheep?
2. Burn your master with a program designed for burning not mastering.
I have lost count the number of people that have burned their master from within their DVD authoring program only to have it fail. It is always better to use an program designed specifically for burning your master. Weather on PC or MAC I would recommend a solution from Roxio.
3. Burn your master slowly.
This is the other simple and easy way to improve your master’s chances of passing the verification process. Many times, if you burn you master at too fast a setting, data errors can occur on the master that do not show up when you play it back on your machine. However those errors cause the master to not pass the ISO testing that we require. So take a little extra time, grab a latte, soda, beer… whatever your choice. This is one of those choices that are penny wise and pound foolish when your master fails because of missing data packets.
4. Package it well.
So you have done the other steps I mentioned above. Now is the time to send us your disk, so you look around your office and all you can find is a standard paper envelope. You decide (in the interest of time) to put the master in the envelope and write “DO NOT BEND” on the envelope. This is when the mail gods are awakened and decide that type of labeling on the envelope only worked during WWII. So off to the mail sorter goes your envelope… and disk shards arrive at Corporate Disk that no amount of super glue and duct tape will put back together. You say to yourself I would never do that… Well good. Find a padded envelope or box or even a Priority Box, put the disk into a mail safe package (think TrimPak or at least a paper sleeve) and send it off. Otherwise it might end up looking like this… and you thought I was joking 
