Mirror surface

[deukalion]

All dvds and cds bought in the market have this "mirror"-like writing surface; among others i guess this is how we all recognize an original from a recordable disk after all. I really have no clue about these disks and i'd like to ask around how come and we can't find recordable disks of this type in the market, so we could author original projects on our own. Is there some special kind of burner for it and where/at what cost someone could find them? I know i can order this to some authoring company but since i'm a lot into dvd authoring i would like to produce them myself, using disks that look like "originals" from below and are printable on top.

BTW, most of the cds today do have this kind of writing surface - not completely mirrory but almost there. Yet, dvds still look like purple-blue-something.

[Gen-An]

Original CDs/DVDs are pressed at plants, not "written" in the way recordable media are, and generally use aluminum as the reflective layer which gives the "mirrorlike" surface you mention. All DVD recordable media uses organic dye which comes in various shades of purple depending on the exact type. CD media uses various dyes as well that come in different colors and likely the ones you refer to that have the "mirrory" recordable layer use the colorless phthalocyanine dye, but there are other types like cyanine and azo that are greenish or bluish. You aren't going to find any recordable CD or DVD media that have a silver recordable layer.

[deukalion]

Ok, that's pretty much what i was suspecting.. Do you know where can someone order dvds like that? Is it going to be expensive - cos if i think of the movies newspapers give out for free then a ready disk should be ridiculously cheap..

[Gen-An]

You'll have to get with a duplication company that presses DVDs and CDs.

[redwudz]

And it is expensive unless you need a few thousand copies or more, then the price per copy can be reasonable.

[jman98]

Ok, that's pretty much what i was suspecting.. Do you know where can someone order dvds like that? Is it going to be expensive - cos if i think of the movies newspapers give out for free then a ready disk should be ridiculously cheap..

Do a web search. I'm sure there are DVD pressing plants in Greece, probably in Athens. The problem you will have is that such plants typically require you to place minimum orders of say 100 discs. Each disc is relatively cheap, but if you have to buy 100 or more of them, it's not very cheap in total.

If this is any help to you and you want to burn your own CDs/DVDs, I believe that the dye that Verbatim uses in their CDs is likely to last longer than the other types of dyes in use. Taiyo Yuden, which does NOT use the same dye as Verbatim on CDs, uses a dye that has excellent reflectivity and may give you the results closest to pressed CDs, but I'm not sure that this dye will last as long as what Verbatim uses. I think everyone uses basically the same dye on DVDs, but Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden seem to have the best quality discs available for burning DVDs yourself.

My opinions on dyes are just that - my opinions. I have no hard evidence to back up what I believe.