Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: DVD duplication costs

This is topic DVD duplication costs in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 11-23-2004, 10:12 AM:

Just wondering how much it costs to have a DVD pressed in quantities of perhaps several thousand, with a regular case & inserted full color cover. I'm just curious because a local Chicago area custom furniture chain, Walter E. Smithe is giving away disks with a couple of short puppet animations that were holiday favorites on kids tv shows years ago. (They actually look like they date from the 1950's. Not sure if they were just a Chicago thing: One about elves called Hardrock, Coco & Joe and a second one on called Suzy Snowflake. Perhaps they are PD now.)

Just wondering how much this is costing them.

Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 11-23-2004, 10:34 AM:

[Eek!]

I remember watching Suzy Snowflake as one of the "cartoons" on the Bozo The Clown show as a kid!

Here... Comes... Su-zy Snow-flake! Look at her tum-bling dooooown!
"Come out everyone and play with me, I haven't long to stay..." [Razz]

I remember it was black & white and very crude looking.

=TMP=

Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 11-23-2004, 11:18 AM:

I bought these animations on VHS from the Chicago TV/Radio museum a few years ago, and it would be a terrific DVD. That and "Pee Wee's Christmas" are two of the best Christmas programs EVER! (The animations are also available on a Christmas compilation DVD from Toontracker.com)

Now, if I could just track down that commercial that went "It's one day closer to Christmas, so do your mailing now"

Those are 2 cartoons from the legendary BOZO SHOW from WGN in Chicago. Thomas described Suzy Snowflake pretty well.

Hardrock, Coco and Joe was officially called THREE LITTLE ELVES. This is a great example of '50's puppet animation (although with extremely limited movement". Best part is the delayed appearance of Joe later in the piece.

Time to play the "Grand Prize Game" and remember the words:

"Ole olady olady I oh
That's Hardrock, and Coco, and Joe

Now listen my children and you shall hear
A story fantastic, a story so queer
It's all about Santa and his helpers three
There's Hardrock, and Coco, and Joe

Now Hardrock's the driver up there by his sleigh
Coco reads maps and he shows him the way
Though old Santa really has no need for Joe
But takes him cause he loves him so

And Santa is busy with his heavy pack
He trusts his drivers and never looks back
Ole olady olady I oh
He's Hardrock, he's Coco, he's Joe

Ol' Santa will come in and set down his pack
And Hardrock will hold the reindeer till Santa comes back
If you hear a giggle as he turns to go
It's Coco, a snowball, and..........JOE!...

...And Santa is busy with his heavy pack
He trusts his drivers and never looks back
Ole olady olady I oh
I'm Hardrock, I'm Coco, I'm Joe
Ole olady olady I oh..."

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 11-23-2004, 11:35 AM:

Last year we investigated issuing some of our archive titles on DVD for sale. Having got three or four quotes the cost ended up being around UK£1,100 (ish) for the glass master, then £0.22 per unit with a minimum run of 500. After labels, cases and sleeves had all been factored into account the cost of going down the glass master and pressing route ended up in the ballpark of £3 per unit based on a run of 500, tapering down to around £0.30 per unit for a run of 5,000 (all figures for single layer). 1,200 units was the rough point at which pressing from a glass master became more economic than using a duplication company which burnt individual DVD-Rs on banks of high-speed recorders.

In the event we abandoned the project because of copyright clearance problems with the material we were hoping to release, but the bottom line is that you do need to be shifting a substantial number of copies for the sums to add up for a factory-pressed DVD.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 11-23-2004, 11:46 AM:

I'm going to guess that those of you who are familiar with these but are not from Chicago know them from watching WGN-TV on cable. Maybe it was something Channel 9 had commissioned back in the fifties.

Anyway, here, go nuts:
Hardrock, Coco & Joe via Windows Media

Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 11-23-2004, 01:28 PM:

Disc Makers does replication pretty cheaply, at $1.79 per disc for 1000 discs and cheaper for more quantities.

Posted by Wayne Keyser (Member # 2420) on 11-23-2004, 06:01 PM:

Washington DC area "kids of the 50's" remember this film, too - don't know that I can add much, but there are copies available here and there on the Web, and one site had some attribution: recorded by the Les Tucker Singers, Words & Music by Stuart Hamblen.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 11-23-2004, 07:30 PM:

You should check out Film-Tech DVD Duplication Services which our very own Joe Redifer personally runs. Not only will Joe dupe anything regardless of copyright, each disc is burned one at a time in his Mac and hand-mounted into the case. Costs are only $0.50/disc. Also, Joe will guarantee you delivery before he dies, or he will personally refund your money.

(Pre-paid orders of 10,000+ only. Film-Tech not responsible for incomplete orders in the untimely event of Joe's death.)

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 11-23-2004, 07:41 PM:

I have nothing I wished duplicated; just wondering what this promotion is costing the furniture chain.

Given Leo's UK pricing would you think it safe to guess that with packaging it's costing them somewhere between US$0.30-0.50 per unit? I guess that's not so bad; they're probably spending far more than that on the commercials touting the free disks.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 11-23-2004, 07:46 PM:

For all you "Hardrock and Coco and Joe" and cartoon fans out there: Click Joe

Don't get your hopes up! The link is NOT to nude pics of HHOT Redifer.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 11-24-2004, 01:44 AM:

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 11-24-2004, 01:51 AM:

Steve: assuming a run of several thousand that pricing sounds about right. The other complication I forgot to mention is that if you're having a glass master made you can't just deliver a burnt consumer DVD +/- R to the replication company. You either have to deliver the content on DLT or a specially designed authoring disc, which a standard DVD writer won't burn. Delivering the content on an external USB or IEEE1394 hard drive is another option which some companies will accept (at extra cost).

Posted by John Lasher (Member # 968) on 11-26-2004, 06:57 PM:

Actually, many replication facilities in the US will accept a general DVD-R for DVD-5 discs (or 2 for DVD-10s).

It's usually only for a DVD-9 (or, if you have a large amount of data to put on one disc and an exceptionally fat wallet, a DVD-14 or -18) that DLTs are required.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 11-26-2004, 08:17 PM:

Interesting - when I checked this out some months ago none of the replication companies I contacted would accept a consumer-burnt DVD - or +R.