In the recordable optical media world, price is often king. There are plenty of those that still care about the disc quality and also realize that paying slightly more for a better disc will cost you less in the long run when you factor in the number of failed discs that are wasted from the cheaper brands. So when rumors started flying that one of t preeminent media manufacturers, Mitsubishi Kagaku Media (MKM), is looking to close their manufacturing plants, it makes enough sense for reporters and bloggers to take the rumor and run it as factual content.

That happened recently, where it was reported that Mitsubishi Chemical (MKM’s parent company) was indeed shuttering its doors in a Japanese newspaper, Asahi Shimbun on Monday. That story was quickly refuted by MKM to which they reported to remaining vigilant in their dedication to manufacturing their continued lines of recordable DVD and Blu-ray media.

For more details on this story, please click on the below link:
In the recordable optical media world, price is often king. There are plenty of those that still care about the disc quality and also realize that paying slightly more for a better disc will cost you less in the long run when you factor in the number of failed discs that are wasted from the cheaper brands. So when rumors started flying that one of t preeminent media manufacturers, Mitsubishi Kagaku Media (MKM), is looking to close their manufacturing plants, it makes enough sense for reporters and bloggers to take the rumor and run it as factual content.

That happened recently, where it was reported that Mitsubishi Chemical (MKM’s parent company) was indeed shuttering its doors in a Japanese newspaper, Asahi Shimbun on Monday. That story was quickly refuted by MKM to which they reported to remaining vigilant in their dedication to manufacturing their continued lines of recordable DVD and Blu-ray media.

For more details on this story, please click on the below link:
http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=32245

For the last few years, all I have been hearing, when it comes to the CES trade show, is that it is declining and destined to go the way of Comdex. Based on my experience as an exhibitor for numerous years, I was inclined to agree. That was until this year just created a frenzy of people. According to records, an estimated 153,000 people attended the show. I can’t say whether it the show was as successful as other shows, but I can say that we were on our feet a lot and the flow of people to and around our booth was at times overwhelming.

Looks like CES is not ready to be a relic but a viable, healthy featured electronics trade show which will continue to set the mark for a durable trade show.

Apparently the release of Avatar last year, which became the highest selling DVD and Blu-ray movie of all time, spurred a rash of Blu-ray player purchases. In fact the number of homes with Blu-ray players rose 52 percent from a year ago, to 33.5 million in the United States. Whether this was directly related to the release of Avatar or not, it does show that more households are attracted to the high definition experience and that they are willing to pay more for it, even in tougher economic times.

So this is encouraging to the duplication market as well as sales trends for movie formats tends to also cross into increased demand for duplication equipment and media for the same format. So as long as the number of households with Blu-ray players increases, then the number of options for Blu-ray content will follow suit. Another reason to appreciate James Cameron!

Even though researchers generally agree that older generations (30+) have become accustomed to physical media and are more likely continue using it. It’s also a common belief that the younger generations, especially children will become accustomed to maintaining content in a digital realm. But current research has shown that not to be the case.

New research from The NPD Group found that 79 cents of every entertainment dollar spent by kids aged 2 to 14 was used on CDs, movie discs and video games, compared with 21 cents on content downloaded from the Internet. This shows that even when given the option of purchasing and storing digital content, young children are still more interested and comfortable with owning tangible items.

So when people want to pronounce the end of physical media, you’ll know that the evidence says differently.

Apple had a press conference today to announce the release of their latest generation of iPhone – the 4S. But during that conference, they took the opportunity to discuss all of the Apple products with a great deal of emphasis on their “Cloud” computing. Of course this is a great instrument to be able to store any amount or type of digital content that can be accessed from anywhere in the world one has internet access.

But I ask, what happens when the “Cloud” encounters a major storm! Say for instance, there is a glitch that causes information to be accidentally deleted or relocated into someone else’s cloud? That brings up the point of security, what if a hacker breaks into the cloud and releases personal or confidential material to the public. Think it can’t happen, what about all the cell phones of celebrities that have been hacked and photos leaked to the public? Will there’s a will there’s way.

The only secure way to store important or sensitive content is on an optical disc. Flash devices like USB can be altered or erased, only optical discs cannot be altered and with the latest archival grade discs on the market now, they can be stored safely for in some cases hundreds of years. So, do you really want to trust your precious memories, confidential information, critical research files, or anything that matters to you, to a cloud or on a disc that gives greater protection and assurance?

Being in an industry that is centered on physical media, you constantly hear about the death of the CD or how streaming is going to make physical media a thing of the past. But in reality, physical media is the most secure and cheapest method of storing data and content. If you take into account the price of media these days in comparison to flash or the recurring monthly expenses paid for the opportunity to get online content from one’s hard drive, there’s a huge discrepancy. Physical media like optical discs (CD’s, DVD’s, and Blu-ray) cost just a few cents on average, while the alternatives cost considerably more. So why spend the extra money when it’s so easy to produce your own copies of nearly any material on these discs. So, in my opinion, the future is not bleak for optical media, but I see it as being just as in demand as any other storage option!

Jack Nicholson had an iconic line in the movie The Shinning where in his altered state he declared, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Well even though Vinpower and our staff have not gone insane, (which, I guess is up for debate), we are looking for something less dangerous than traipsing around an abandoned haunted hotel but every bit as exhilarating. What we found was a hobby outside of duplicators to throw in our collective excitement, car racing.

The below video shows some of the utter exhilaration from a recent “drifting” car race staged in Taiwan. Vinpower helped sponsor this event in collaboration with Torco Oil, a popular high end racing brand of motor oil. Check out for yourself why Vinpower is so excited about this latest venture and how what looks like insanity behind the wheel, can put us in a more relaxed frame of mind.

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Since the introduction of the CopyConnect feature a few years ago, customers have been clamoring for an enhanced version of this feature. Vinpower Digital listens and last year, with the release of our new 3-series controllers, we introduced Multi-File CopyConnect.

With the standard CopyConnect feature, customers can drag and drop an ISO data file from the hard drive of a computer to the hard drive of the duplicator and begin making copies, all without having to make a master disc. This is an extremely useful feature but somewhat limiting, in that the only recognized file type is an ISO 9600+Joliet formatted file. Some customers have requested a version of the CopyConnect feature that is even easier to use. In response to these requests, Vinpower Digital has introduced an enhanced version of CopyConnect, called Multi-File CopyConnect. This allows a user to drag a file folder to the hard drive of the duplicator and use this to burn discs. With the advent of this enhanced feature, users do not need to know how to make an ISO file, sometimes a difficult concept for non-technical users.

The user drags over a file folder, loads the duplicator with discs of the appropriate size, and begins making copies. If a user copies a file folder with more than 700 MB of data and attempts to burn this data to CD, they will be informed that there is a size mismatch. This is true because they need to copy this much data to a DVD. So with Multi-File CopyConnect enabled on a 3-series controller, the only thing a user needs concern themselves with is whether or not they have inserted blank media of the appropriate size in the duplicator to make copies.

Duplicators have long been using the USB connector to allow the user to transfer content from a computer to either a single drive or directly to the duplicator’s hard drive (HDD). This method is often the easiest or only method by which the user can create the master disc or upload the master content onto the duplicator’s HDD. When it comes to CD or DVD, the transfer rate was adequate and didn’t take too much time that it would cause an issue.

Now, we are living in the world of Blu-ray and disc capacity is growing by leaps and bounds. The older USB 2.0 transfer rate (rated at 60MBytes/sec) is just not gonna cut it when you need to burn or transfer anywhere from 25GB’s to over 100GB’s of data. At that rate it would take hours to make a single Blu-ray master disc.

With the introduction and the implementation by Vinpower of the USB 3.0 (backwards compatible with USB 2.0) which offers a transfer rate up to 5Gbit/s, the transfer time will be knocked down to minutes or even seconds. This will enable those looking to duplicate content onto Blu-ray discs the ability to transfer that data through the USB 3.0 onto a master disc or the duplicator’s HDD rapidly and eliminate wasted time just to get started.

We’ve all seen these handy little devices that plug into the USB ports on our computers and allow us to carry around a tremendous amount of data. The current size leader is the Kingston DataTravler 300, boasting a massive 256 GB of data in the palm of your hand. This is equivalent to carrying around one of the following:

•  365 CD’s (700 MB each)
• 54 DVD’s (4.7 GB each)
• 10 Blu-ray’s (25 GB each)

The majority of these units are actually in the 4 GB to 8 GB range. Which is much larger than the $100 1 GB hard drive I bought 20 years ago. I wouldn’t have been carrying that around in the palm of my hand because there wouldn’t have been anything convenient to plug it into, to extract or share the data. Plus, one static shock or a strong magnet could wipe out all my data.

More and more we are receiving calls and inquires regarding our flash duplicators. We have flash duplicators ranging in size from 3-targets to 63-targets. The Vinpower units have many desirable features such as asynchronous copy mode and an encrypted erase function. The other day a wedding photographer asked me if this was the next wave for picture sharing. I’m not certain but now that USB ports are becoming a standard feature in cars and the fact that many of us carry these devices on our key chains, I’d have to say USB  might just be the next big wave of the future.