I was asked to make a 5 hour playlist for a party taking place this weekend.  At first I thought no big deal.  Then I began the project thinking there are so many hits that I can work with.  I will only use “Hits” from Oldies, 70’s, 80’s Pop, 80’s Hip Hop, 80’s R & B and so on.  I began to put discs togethere taking me well into the early mornings.  Next thing I noticed I had too many hits and had to cut down some of the tracks I wanted to add.  Well in the end my project was completed and I have 5 discs that I am proud to say will rock the party.  Now I am going to use my Shark Copier to duplicate the discs and distribute at the party as I “Rock This Funky Joint!”

When deciding on purchasing a duplicator, there are a number of key elements to consider when determining which unit and brand would fit your needs the best. Even though price is a strong determining factor, keep in mind what you’re getting for the price; will the unit perform as needed? Will the unit grow as your needs grow? Will the company stand behind the product and provide the support you need when you need it? Is the company looking out for your best interest or their own? Most importantly, will the company be around in the future or will they disappear as soon as you need them?

Just like purchasing a computer, home appliance, or even a car, pricing varies depending on performance, reliability, brand name, and manufacturer support. So when you’re selecting a duplicator, don’t just consider the price, but pay particular attention to these 3 key elements:
1. Design & Component material
2. Manufacturing, Testing, and Shipping procedures
3. Customer Service and Technical Support

I) Design & Component material:

When you look at the Xerox Duplicator and the SharkCopier series duplicators provided by Vinpower Digital, the first thing you notice is the unique look and design. This attractive design not only differentiates itself through its appearance, but through the use of higher quality and more effective components and parts. It’s those parts that ensure a better performing and longer lasting duplicator. There are a number of duplicator providers who just throw components together without taking into consideration quality or effectiveness. The Vinpower provided lines of the Xerox and SharkCopier duplicator series are not assembled with the standard parts and low cost components others use; the Xerox Duplicator and SharkCopier series is designed to answers to a higher calling, the customers! Even though the Xerox Duplicator line offers some added value standard features compared to the SharkCopier series, they are both designed and built using the following components which show the added value of these duplicators over the competition:

A) Casing (external case): Both series use an aluminum casing specially designed by Vinpower Digital to diffuse the internal heat created by the writer drives much faster than the standard steel casing is capable of. With the casings advanced air flow design and aluminum casing, the internal temperature of the duplicator is approximately 10 ~ 15 degrees cooler than alternative cases on the market. Operating the duplicator under lower temperatures will not only allow for continuous use without the need for a cool down period, but also increases the lifetime of the unit while providing better reliability when duplicating. The less heat concentrated on the drives, the better the performance and the longer they will continue to perform optimally.

B) Controller (operating system): The controller for the Xerox Duplicator and SharkCopier series is specially manufactured for these units and is not available to the general public as other controller brands in alternative duplicators are. Other controller manufacturers do not assemble completed duplicator and do not understand the full symbiotic nature that the controller, drives and casing plays in the overall performance. Their focus is more on uniformity in design and operation to work the same for everyone instead of optimizing the performance and conveniences expected from users of the Xerox Duplicator and SharkCopier series. In fact, if you took two identical duplicators with the only variables being the controllers, the Vinpower controller will produce a better disc performance rating every time (based on the PIPO scale for measuring disc quality). The Vinpower controllers are calibrated to optimize the reading and writing drivers/burners on the market to ensure all the drives work in sync to produce a clean consistent duplication. In addition to compatibility, Vinpower utilizes a greater number of capacitors and diodes that ensures proper functionality and better reliability. The added components allows these controllers to perform all the same functions as standard controllers but offers more options and capabilities which ultimately benefits the end user.

C) Drives (writer and reader drives): The Xerox Duplicator and SharkCopier series only use the best drives optimized for multi-drive simultaneous duplication to provide the greatest possible performance. The controller is able to manipulate many of the drives on the market directly to provide stable and quality performance that is better suited for duplicator use. Understanding and using the best drives for your particular needs and circumstances is extremely important for both your end product and your pocket book.

II) Manufacturing, Testing, and Shipping procedures

Even if you use the best components and materials to build the duplicator, if the proper care and knowledge to assemble them is not performed, then you will not have an optimized unit. The Xerox Duplicator and SharkCopier series are assembled by very knowledgeable and skilled technicians and every duplicator has to pass a 72 hour continuous burn-in test before it’s ever released to the public. Both series are assembled under the strictest Quality Control conditions to ensure every unit sold meets the highest standards in quality and performance.

To further ensure that the Xerox Duplicator and SharkCopier series arrives to the customer in the best condition and to prevent any possible damage caused by the shipping carrier, all of these duplicators are double insulated and packed in a specially designed shipping box to better protect against mishandling in transit. When the customer purchases new equipment, it should arrive in that manner no matter how it was shipped.

III) Customer Service and Technical Support

Our relationship with the customer does not end after the unit has been sold. The ability to speak to a technician whom is knowledgeable and available when you have questions is a key component when deciding on a duplicator to purchase. Every Xerox Duplicator and SharkCopier series sold has the full backing and support of Vinpower Digital. Both series come standard with a full one year parts and labor warranty. In addition, our technicians will be available to walk you through any problem or question you may have from the first day to the last as long as you own the duplicator. Our technicians work with you directly and actually have technical training and knowledge of every single duplicator to ensure you get prompt and accurate answers and service. Unlike some fly by night companies looking to make a quick buck who are never available or capable of providing answers or service, we stand behind the products we sell and the customers who buy them.

When you look at all of the facts behind what makes a duplicator stand out amongst the competition, the answer is very clear which units ranks the best, the one that provides the highest compatibility, best performance, longest lasting, and most features. In other words the Xerox Duplicator and SharkCopier series are your best options for optical disc duplication equipment.

    

I had a great weekend, I went to see a Noah’s Ark exibit and had a great time.  Imagine how much easier Noah’s job would have been if he had a Vinpower Digital Duplicator.  He could have gathered just one of every animal and waited unitl it was time to exit the ark to dupliate it.  I know the person in charge of cleaning the ark would have appreciated it!

There are many critical components and functions on a controller that will determine the overall performance of that device. Yet there’s one element that is easy to source and rarely differentiates in capability or performance, the memory buffer. The function of the memory buffer is to temporarily hold data while it is being moved from an input device to an output device. For example, the buffer will temporarily hold data from the master source in the reader which will be copied onto blank media in the writer drives. The necessity for a memory buffer is due to the fact that often the writer drives can write faster than the reader drive can read the data to them. This is especially true with the larger bandwidth formats like Blu-ray. Additionally, in most situations, 1 or more of the writer drives will be noticeably faster than others. That means that the faster drive(s) would have to slow down or stop in order for the slower writer drive(s) to catch up due to the fact that all the data is being written simultaneously across all drives. Irregular copy speeds amongst writer drives in a single duplicator can play havoc on ones production time and efforts.

Most writer drives are built with the PC market in mind, meaning typically using 1 drive to copy 1 disc at a time. Using those drives in a duplication environment, where it could have as many as 15 drives connected making 15 copies at a time, there is far more instances where the drive burning speeds are not truly in sync. The buffer is intended to keep enough data stored so that the fastest and the slowest writers drives will not need to stop (referred to as “Burn Proof”) or error out because they cannot get the data transferred quick enough.

An important element of the memory buffer is that it must use either DDR or DDR2 memory chips. Only DDR or DDR2 memory chips are fast enough to grab large bandwidth data from the reader and relay it simultaneously to multiple writer drives in order to copy that data onto recordable media. Those using the traditional SDRAM memory chips will not be able to provide the speed necessary and will ultimately lead to Buffer Under-run or errors in the copied discs.

Another critical element for the memory buffer is its size. The larger the buffer the more data it can hold and the more tolerance it will have when the writer drives differ in their duplication speed or they are unable to keep pace with the reader itself. That means less burn proofing, so less potential for failed discs, and higher quality copies. This is especially true for the larger formats like Blu-ray where there is a great deal more data to transfer.

It has been brought to our attention that some controller manufacturers, in a cost cutting maneuver, are not using DDR or DDR2 memory and have downgraded their controllers to only 32MB of memory buffer. This will of course reduce the overall cost of the controller, but they are dramatically sacrificing quality and reliability as a trade off.

Vinpower Digital is not willing to sacrifice the integrity and quality of our products to save a little money. Ultimately the cost savings would end up costing us much more in the loss of confidence and eventually sales from our customers. That’s why we use a minimum 128MB memory buffer with DDR2 memory chips to ensure the highest quality and reliability. So when you’re looking for a duplication controller or even a complete duplicator, make sure you know exactly what you’re getting and not just what the price is. There is a difference, so it’s important to be educated so that you can make the right decision. In doing so, you’ll ultimately save money buying a better quality system which doesn’t require as much maintenance or support so that you can pay attention to more important things.

The heat is on!!!  For all of you out there that can’t spend your days of summer floating in a body of water off of a coast because you have to work in the duplication business; just remember Vinpower Digital has aluminum casing to help keep your duplicators cool while you run those large duplication projects. 

Recently there has been some documentation related to the design method of SATA standalone duplication controllers which touts one method as being better than another. It’s important that the truth be told and I want to set the record straight so that the consumer can review the facts and decide for themselves.

The dispute centers around the method in which current SATA controllers are designed and built. One party claims to be the sole provider of the “Native SATA” (NS) chipset which they claim is faster and more reliable. The alternative application is the Individual Channel SATA (ICS) configuration.

In order to make the comparison in a more understandable concept for the masses, including myself, I will break down the differences between the two by using an analogy that is closely related and something most people can relate to, internet access.

Picture the NS concept as being akin to cable while ICS would be ADSL. In both cases, they will allow the user to access the internet, they’re both potentially really fast, both offer connections for virtually any computer, and if they exist in a territory are relatively easy to receive.

The cable access does have an advantage in that it can carry greater bandwidth and may be faster than ADSL. According to published websites ranking the downloading speed between Cable and ADSL, they’ve listed the following speeds:

Cable fluctuated between 15Mbps ~ 25Mbps of download speed depending on the carrier.

ADSL was rated as having 6Mbps download speed.

The problem comes into play when multiple locations (households) all need to access the single cable line at the same time. Even though cable can handle a higher bandwidth, it’s limited in the number of households that can access the internet at the same time. The reason being is that they are all using the same access point which will bog down the system and cause the speed to drop significantly, especially if they are viewing/transferring large files. Think about it in terms of a sandwich, if you have the option of eating an entire 12” sandwich which you have to share with 2 others or you can each a 6” sandwich that you do not have to share. The 12” seems longer until everyone else starts taking their share, which more often than not, one household inevitably will take more than their fare share. Yet, even if it were eaten equally amongst all 3 households, they will each end up with a smaller amount of the sandwich (4” each) than they would have had if they opted for the 6” they didn’t need to share.

ADSL may have limitations in the total bandwidth/speed available, but what is available is typically more than adequate for the tasks at hand for reliable fast internet access. The difference and the benefit comes into play when you understand that ADSL provides each household with their own direct access point to the internet hub which they do not have to share. It then becomes that ADSL is faster because they are not burdened or slowed down by the actions of other households who access the internet at the same time.

This holds true for NS and ICS controllers as well. The NS controller may hold an advantage in bandwidth, but the fact that all ports/connections are tied to a single bus, means that bandwidth gets diminished when each connection is utilized, especially for larger capacity formats like Blu-ray. Take for example; a 1 to 7 NS controller. If only 3 of the 7 ports are being utilized, it may be able to successfully copy a full Blu-ray master at 12x speed. However, if you utilized all 7 ports at the same time, then the added capacity and division of bandwidth will now limit the speed to 6x. Since all ports are tied to a single bus, all drives will be tied together which means any errors affecting 1 drive will ultimately create a drag on the total bandwidth and affect all the drives. So using the NS method and the more ports that are utilized the more the speed will decrease and thus so will the reliability.

For the ICS controller, since each port is connected to its own dedicated bus, the speed and drive reliability is not affected by utilizing more ports because they are all independent of each other. So if a 1 to 7 ICS controller can copy Blu-ray at 12x using only 3 ports, utilizing more ports on that same controller will not have any affect on the duplication speed or reliability. The ICS controller is more effective because all ports are connected to individual dedicated bus points that produce consistent and stable transmissions without relying on a single bus with shared bandwidth.

So even though both methods have their merits, in the end the ICS method is the most credible solution as well as the most widely used tactic for the duplication market. The general requirement of a duplicator customer is to be able to produce numerous copies quickly and the ICS method is the only way to ensure that the customer’s needs are met. So when you’re looking for what type of controller you want in your duplicator, keep in mind that just because a company touts that their Native SATA version is faster or superior, they may not discuss the true capabilities of their product when used at or near stated capacity. Don’t take our word for it – run the tests yourself and we’re certain you’ll come to the same conclusion, a shared bus connection model like the Native SATA controller will more likely create significant speed and throughput issues even for the simplest of duplication jobs.

Office camaraderie is nice and ripe just like the fruit bearing trees on the property here at Vinpower Digital.  

 

Even our CEO enjoys getting involved with his staff as they gather peaches for the office to share.

             

The Los Angeles Lakers are your 2010 Champions of the NBA, and there is nothing that can be done to take that away until next June.  Now I just need to find a way to use Vinpower’s duplicator to make another Kobe Bryant because no one else can stop him!

Computex 2010 has come and gone and once again it was another successful and beneficial exhibition. Each year we increase our presence and our product line which has been well received by the attendees and our fellow exhibitors that we often partner with. Below are a few snapshots of our booth at the show:

This is an photo of our booth at the show – even this massive booth couldn’t exhibit all the products that we have available

We had many visitors stop by our booth, both attendees that require duplication equipment and those who were just impressed with the incredible product line we displayed.

A brief look at some of the many new products that we are offering, especially in the automated and printing field.

Our partners sent us congratulatory gifts on a successful show.

Well Boston excaped last night after the Lakers stayed close for 3 quarters.  I was recording the game but now I am glad that Vinpower has the rewritable DVD media available for me because I can just erase what I was recording and start all over on Sunday when the Lakers win the next game in Boston!!!!!