Building a 9 Bay DVD Duplication Tower...
 

I've been searching online for any recommendations, tips, techniques, and stories about building a 5 to 9 bay DVD duplication tower.

There are a few different DVD controllers out there. Wytron, Vast, U-Master (which I like), BSA, and Acard to name a few. The cases and DVD drives are easy to find, but I'm always looking for a good deal if you know of one.

Here are a few concerns. I'm using FCP and iDVD to make my DVD. That means that my media is DVD-R. So I have to find both a controller and a DVD drive that is compatible. Next, a lot of the companies that are selling these products (i.e. Tiger Direct and other smaller companies) have a horrible rating with the Better Business Bureau. That's kind'a scary! I'm also on a time crunch and I can't afford wasting money of crappy products, bad customer service or just getting flat out scammed.

So, if anyone would like to share any advice, stories, reputable companies, and/or products-I would greatly appreciate it!

I really don't want to buy a pre-made tower or automated unit. I don't have a huge budget and would prefer to build one right now.

Thanks.

Newegg has some prebuilts that are a good price, but do not know the models. They do have a 1-7 Vinpower using Pioneer A-09s for $1099. Newegg is one of the best online retailers. Only folks I have had as good an experience with or better, BH Photo Video.

Resellerratings.com is fairly reliable for looking up vendors.

Thanks for the input and advice. Newegg had some pretty competitive prices.

Once I build my duplicator-I'll report back with the details.

Building a 9 Bay DVD Duplication Tower...
 

I build them all the time
Here is what i just built for a customer

7 bay case from tigerdirect.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...c.asp?CatId=92

bsa 1-9 controller from tigerdirect
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...74356&CatId=92

5 samsung dvd-+rw with dual layer from tigerdirect
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...26535&CatId=89

and a samsung dvd player from tigerdirect
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...226534&CatId=0

burned everything i threw at it, so far.

I've been considering the Promax 1:3 duplicator. Currently, I'm getting 100% reliability doing singles on Riteks with the LaCie D2 FW burner connected to my G4. Is it reasonable to expect accurate duplication from this unit (or similar)? Anyone had any experiences, good or bad?

Thanks

finished
 

Well, I built first my duplicator this weekend. I spent a little over $700 and the set up was a snap. I easliy saved $400 or more by building it myself.

The hardest part was the research. I had to first figure out which dvd controlled had the options that best suited my needs. Second, was what drives to buy- preformance, price, reliability and compatibility with the duplicator controller were all issues.
And third, wass to figure out what companies to buy from- who had a good Better Business Bureau rating and of course, experiences from other collegues.

So, if you're pondering about building vs. buying...I recommend building your own DVD Duplicator Tower. It was nothing more than plug and paly!

Specs: West Digitial 40g HD, LiteOn DVD-ROM, X-Case 9 bay w/500 watt power supply, BENQ DVD-Writers, and an ACARD 2033P Copy Controller.

Companies: TigerDirect, Systor Systems, Inc.-esystor.com, Ebay and Circuit City. I was shocked with Circuit City's online deals! I'm ususally a Best Buy kinda' guy.

So I can now handle small duplication runs without bogging down my computer.

The only bottle neck is printing. My epson R200 will be getting quite a work out!

I'll have to start researching printers, printing techniques, and ink costs next.

If anyone has any related stories, experiences, or news I'd be interested in reading about them. Thanks for the help.

How many drives did you install. I only ask because the Lacie 5 drive duplicator is around 700 bucks. I'm pondering buy or build.

How many burners??
 

I have 6 burners in the case. I could have put more in, but I wanted to be able to burn the image from a Hard Drive (It helps prevent burning errors).

So, I had to install a DVD-ROM Drive and Hard Drive. Here's the order in the 9 bay duplicator case starting from the top.

HD, DVD-ROM, 3 DVD Burners, DVD Duplicator Card, and 3 more Burners.

I hope this answers your question.
-Mike

I have a Wytron with 9 pioneer 108 frives, and it is faultless. It's a really reliable controller - and make a bigger bay - you always need the extra capacity sometime :-)

DVD usually spits out in 4 minutes.

for about 1600$ you can get a primera robot that can burn and print 50 DVD in a row.

Hey John, what wyntron do you have, I see very few places that look legit to get the wyntron from?

I think I am going to build. I just called TigerDirect and they no longer carry any dvd controllers.

I built an 11 bay about a month ago.

I've got a Wyrton 399 controller and Pioneer 110D burners. I've got a Lite-On DVD-ROM reader drive and a 160 GB hard drive.

Currently I've only got 3 burners in, but the card is expandable to 9 so I'm adding one at a time when I get significant orders. Should be at a full 9 by the end of the year.

It's great, works flawlessly.

The only issue really to plan for is the hard drive. It partitions the drive based upon either CD, DVD or Dual layer DVD. So the partitions are either 800MB, 4.7 GB, or 9 GB. This is important because on my 160GB drive I get 24 partitions. I can load 24 different images onto it. So a 200 MB CD image takes a 4.7 GB partition.

So you end up needing a bigger hard drive than you might think to hold all your stuff.

DVD Control purchase
 

I bought my DVD control here:
http://www.esystor.com/shop/Index.as...sNM=Controller

I had a great experience with them. No problems. Although, I have been looking at the BBB website more often to check businesses out. It seems there have been problems with this company. I didn't have one though.

Good luck!

Built
 

Well, I built my duplicator. This is where and what I used.

Controller: http://www.amamax.com/wydv1ta16xdv.html

Case: http://www.amamax.com/pomaxcblp79b.html

[Note] Amamax shopping cart was a little odd looking, but no concerns with the product.

Rom Drive : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827152047

Burners: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827131410

[Note] This is the first shipment that ever concerned me from Newegg. My box looked like a Sumo wrestler had sat on it. But the price was right for what I bought.

Overall I spent 500 bucks. So far so good, I duplicated some cd's (Photos) last night and I was instantly in love. I put the thing together in about 30 minutes. It's much easier than building a computer, but if you have built a computer, this is easy. I encourage anyone to build thier own if they need to get time back, a duplicator is the way to go.

I have been doing some corporate work and each copy is 4 dvd's, so doing even 10 copies can take forever using one burner.

Congrats on the duplicator! You'll soon wonder what you ever did without it.

I'm curious why you went with a smaller tower than your controller is capable of.

Well, I have room for two more burners, that would bring me to 7, but good point, I suppose I should have gone with a 9 tower.

I have searched for an online manual for the wytron controller but cannot locate one, hoping you can provide some info.

Do the dvd burners have to be identical?

What is the usb interface kit?

When using a hard drive for images how is it partitioned/formatted by the controller or by a pc? How do you transfer the image file from pc to the hard drive? I will be using the removable drive tray and assume it is drag and drop file transfer.

Are the image files .iso or video_ts folders?

Any info would be appreciated, have dvd copies due from a school play and this could be a good investment.

THANKS

There's nothing in the manual, such as it is, that says that the burners have to be identical, but in theory, I suppose you would have less compatibility issues if you use the same burner.

The manual says that you ue the master reader to load the image into the hard drive. I'll continue to read if you can do this via usb.

The best I can see from the manual, the USB is so you can connect to a pc to use the entire duplicator.

I've just burned from a master disk, i.e. dvd-rw and dvd-r.

I have two purchases that I have found to be priceless. One of them is my camera dolly, and this duplicator being the other.


If you do projects that are more than just a couple of copies, this is definately a way to go. I built this one for less than 500 bucks.

Ordered the parts today, if all goes well should be duplicating five at a time by next week. Thanks for the info, I went with the wytron controller.

Just want to make sure....the "Burners" is what you got 7 of to duplicate and the "Rom Drive" is what you use to hold the original?
Thanks

Yes, my duplicator will hold the one rom drive, then 7 targets. I only bought 5 for now, but I can add two extras later.

Took about an hour to assemble.

Duplicator has 4 nec 3540a recorders, hard drive in a removable caddie and pioneer 104 source drive.

Still trying to navigate the lcd menu of the wytron controller but it will definately be a time saver. About 28 minutes to rip the source dvd to the duplicator hard drive and then about ten minutes to make the copies. By removing the hd tray the pioneer 104 defaults to the source drive for a disc to disc copy.

Now I just need to save enough money to buy 4 more nec burners!

Yeah, as nice as the Wytron controller is, they could have spent some more time on the manual.

Prior to building my duplicator, I was doing the whole 1 disc at a time, for a project that had 40plus dvd's.

So it was awesome popping the disk in to the rom drive and hitting the 'majic' button.

You might want to do some time comparisons to burning your project to disk instead of to your hard drive. The rom drive is about 20 bucks or so.

It's also my understanding that you can connect the whole tower to your computer and burn straight to the duplicator. I believe that's what the usb port is for.

Like I said, Wytron could do a little more with thier manual.

I'm glad you like your duplicator. I know from first hand experience it's a major time saver.

My post from yesterday seems to have vanished...

28 minutes to rip a DVD? That seems slow. I can't remember ever having a DVD take that long. I think there's a setting to change the read speed somewhere, make sure all the speed options are on 'auto'.

I know that I have issues with printables at high speeds, so the controller may throttle down, which is understandable.

I know even though I have 16x sony dvd burner in my computer, I can't burn certain printables faster thatn 6x, even though they are supposedly burnable at 16x according to the manufacture, it's a sham I say a sham!. :}

Is a Hard Drive needed?
 

My partner and I are new to the Video business I just finished burning our 90th or so DVD for a football tournament video. I did this one disc at a time on 2 computers. I'm here to say I have a lot better things to do with my time.

We have another tournament now to edit. It will fill two dvd's and 50 or so customers have order them.

In January we have a Bridal show we are setting up a booth in and want to hand out dvd's to prospective clients.

I think I need a duplicator.

Would it be best to have a hard drive built in to the unit so you can burn an image to the dvd's?

I have had some bad experiences copy from disc to disc on a computer.

I also don't want to spend $500 or so on a home made unit only to regret it and have to spend $500 more to buy one that works.

So do I need a hard drive. Also is therea book or some place I can get more info on all the exact specs I need before I purchase all the hardware? I am planning on ordering this week.

Please help!

I think there are media issues with the makers of certain dvd recorders. That is one reason there are so many "hacked" firmware releases available. The drive is capable of burning the media at the rated speed, but the drive manufacturers disable the maximum speed on certain media. Don't know why but I'm sure there is a reason for it in the corporate world.

q: Would it be best to have a hard drive built in to the unit so you can burn an image to the dvd's?

a: the hard drive allows you to store an image of the original dvd and make copies from the image. The advantage is you do not need the original dvd and you can store multiple image files on one drive. So you could have the football tournament image file on partition aa and the bridal show demo on partition ab. I have made copies from both an image file and dvd disc. All burns were successful and completed in under ten minutes. The hard drive is a convenience but is not necessary. However, hard drives are inexpensive and worth considering.


q:Also is therea book or some place I can get more info on all the exact specs I need before I purchase all the hardware?

a: I looked for as much info as possible on the net and found few turotials or instructions. I went with the same controller as steven and it works great. The layout of the board is simple to understand. The only two connections are power and ide cables. The lcd menu is a bit confusing but I think that may be the same for any controller whether you build it yourself or buy one preassembled.

Given the options of buying the duplicator pre assembled or building it yourself
depends on your situation. The cost is less to build and you will have a better understanding of how it works. I will be glad to answer any questions that may help you with your decision.

IDE controllers, promise bad for CD/DVD dupes
 

Well, I am currently building a render/burner box using an older asus motherboard and 2GHz P4, using 3 Benq 1640 DVD burners. I used a promise Ultra100tx2 IDE controller for one of the burners and it didn't work. A little research on the net, and info provided by Ahead(Nero, the software I am using), suggests that many of the IDE controller cards don't cut it for ATAPI burning devices as they don't support DMA (and other problems) with CD drives, which in turn leads to buffer underruns. Also, apparently Promise adapters are simply problematic for use in dupe towers. Anyway, it seems that SIIG controllers are the way to go. I bought the SIIG|SC-PE4B12. It's a 2 channel pci card $32 at newegg. I thought this might be useful info to include in this thread rather than start a new one. cheers! Mark

Hard drive issues
 

Okay, I really need to get one of these. Since the price difference is so little in regards to building one myself or purchasing one on eBay, I'm probably going to go the eBay route. That said, can I add a hard drive myself? How do you set up the partitions correctly?

On some of the eBay deals, you can pay extra for a hard drive, but they usually top out at 250 or 300 GB and I want at least a 400 GB in the system.

Thanks!!
Joe

Joe, depending on the controller, you should be able to add a hard drive yourself. One of the reasons I built it myself is, I wanted to pick out the drives that went in the thing.

It took me some digging to find out the drives that sellers use to build thier duplicators, but after I did, I decided to build it myself. For example, when I priced the pre-built componants, I found that the seller was making like 200 bucks extra, even if I bought the componants from newegg. Some sellers use cheap drives. Those and other reason, I built mine. I've been very happy, and other than operator error, mine has not given me one problem.

It took me 30 minutes to put it together. If you do decide to buy one put together, ask what the controller and drives are. Make sure they are not crap.

multi-bay duplicator
 

hi

I got some very helpful advice/information from this thread and have just received a Wytron 399 controller from California and have just ordered 6 Pioneer 111 dvd units from a firm in Vancouver and a 9 bay box from a company in California. Hopefully all will come together shortly. I will post my experiences when I am up and running. Trying to find the box and controller in Canada was a no go.

Martin

www.amamax.com
 

I am considering purchasing from this site: www.amamax.com

Does anyone know anything about them, positive or negative?

The system I'm looking at uses these:

Acard 2033 Series Controller + Case + Power Supply
Pioneer 109 16x DVD+-R/RW Drives

Thanks!
Joe

I'd have to check my records at home for sure, but I think this is where I got my controller and maybe my case. I got my drives from newegg. I don't remember any issues with them. I think I actually remember them being very friendly.

Yep, if you look at page on of this thread, you'll see my list of what from where. I did do buisiness with amamax

Wytron
 

I see you used the Wytron controller. Is it better than the acard? I've heard mostly good things about both.

Joe

I've heard good things about both as well, I believe it came down to the one I thought looked the coolest. That's sad.

Sad
 

It IS sad, but it's also the kind of thing I'd do, so I can't say anything! ;)

Here's the system I'm looking at. If you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them. And thanks for all the help and advice!

http://store.yahoo.com/amamax/pi1ta16xspdv2.html

I also purchased from www.amamax.com and www.newegg.com
and recommend both vendors.

amamax was very prompt with the billing and shipping. I ordered the controller, case and power supply from amamax.com and there was no charge for shipping, great deal considering the weight and size of the case.
Also everything was packaged securely to avoid damage in transit. Only minor complaint is the ziploc bag was not sealed so some of the screws were running around loose, no big deal.

I have the wytron controller and it is easy to add a hard drive. My hard drive is jumpered to master and is in a removable caddy. The source dvd-rom drive is jumpered to slave, if the hd caddy is not present it will default to the source dvd rom drive. If the duplicator powers up with the hd caddy in place it becomes the default source drive.

Works great is a real time saver

More questions
 

George, your system sounds great. I run an online store that sells DVDs and I'm so far behind in shipping that it's ridiculous. My current 2 DVD at a time setup just doesn't work anymore.

So how easy or difficult is the interface to use? I'm assuming you just click through the LCD display and tell it what to copy and how many to make?

I have nearly 700 GB of iso files on two external hard drives. I'll be transferring some of these - the most ordered - to whatever hard drive I get and use the externals for backups or something silly like that. :)

Joe