Packaging
 

For a while now I've been feeling that our packaging isn't doing our work justice. It just feels a little cheap to me which isn't the impression I'm wanting to give.

We ship almost all our DVD sets out to brides since we almost never shoot in our home town, and I'm looking for upscale and creative ways to improve the appearance of our packaging. I've always been impressed with Apple's packaging and the way they present the product, it's well thought out and gives you a feeling of overall quality as you open it.

I've seen guys use those clear plastic cases, and maybe that's something we should consider, but do you have any other ideas, especially relating to the larger box we ship the DVD's in. I'd love for the bride to be wowed from the very simple act of receiving and opening the box, then popping the DVD in their player and being wowed again.

I've thought of a satin lined box or something to that effect, but I can't seem to crystallize the thought in my head.

I'd like to see what some of you guys are doing and maybe get a vendor name or two.

Ethan - I was pondering the exact same thing recently. I use an Epson 280 to create a very nice printed DVD but it goes downhill from there. Cheap white plastice DVD case with an insert done to the best of my poor graphics abilities. Then bubble wrap them into a cardboard box. I have seen some leather mongrammed cases which are pricey but nice. Then I'd like to ship in a white shrink-wrapped box.

Art

I've been using these leather DVD cases for the past two years and love them. I only give that case to the bride and groom and the other copies are regular DVD cases. I design each case insert for those and the leather ones for each wedding and the quality of print is still very high because I feel thats what really makes the difference between a cheap looking one and a professional looking one. just an idea to get away from the same old DVD cases.

CD Holder Albums | Albums |

I use Supreme CD/DVD Folio Album - 174

Matt

Hi Ethan!

We use those clear, slim DVD cases so that the label on the DVD can be seen through it. We like how simple and clean it is.

We also include a little gift and a thank you card. We wrap it in colorful tissue paper and and order little mini suitcases (that can be reused to their hearts content, lunch box, pencil box, storage, etc.) to package everything. That slides right into the ReadyPost bubble envelope at the Post Office.

The suitcase thing works for us because of our company name, "Vacilando" and it's theme, traveling for the sake of traveling. The gift also reflects our "mission."

We've only gotten positive feedback from it, and we're pretty happy with the simplicity.

I think I have some photos of a sample somewhere.

Give me a moment and I'll try to post a link.

Those look great, too, Matt. I think that especially works for companies who shoot bother the photo and video!

I've been having the same problems. We print the bride/grooms name on each DVD with our logo at the bottom. I've been looking at boxes like these (Living – Photo Storage: Red Photo and Video Box) to put the DVD's in . We were going to put some of that straw packing material in as well. For our local brides, we are also going to include some gourmet popcorn and for our brides that have moved away, a package of local coffee.
If you look at the front of the box, you could put a label in there with there last name. I've got a couple of things I'm throwing around. Total cost should be less than $10 per wedding.

Sorry, couldn't find them, so I threw something together quick and snapped a shot:

http://i456.photobucket.com/albums/q...packaginup.jpg

http://i456.photobucket.com/albums/q...gingclosed.jpg

http://i456.photobucket.com/albums/q...kagingopen.jpg

(Sorry for the blur, but I was trying to be quick!)

I don't have time to put anything online today, but Monday I'll try to put what we're currently doing up so and see if it sparks any suggestions.

I have been using the super jewel boxes king size and just doing art work on the disc. These are perfectly clear and pretty heavy duty cases. It is harder to find a supplier that carries them, but I did find them here towards the bottom of the page...

DVD Cases from Sleeve City

Outside of that I do not do any other special packaging so it great to hear some of these ideas!

We do regular DVD Cases, but put some time into making the DVD case look like a retail DVD... complete with barcode (their wedding date) cast, synopsis, critic reviews, fine print, etc. Brides seem to get a kick out of the little details.

Very nice, Andrew! Do you come up with new copy and quotes for the back cover for every DVD or is it standardized copy? I also try to make mine look like a retail DVD and go for a more simple, clean look.

It's somewhat standardized as far as most of the information... we swap out names, cast, synopsys, photos, runtime, etc... we use family members or vendors for their "critic quote" (i.e. two thumbs up!, riviting!, etc.).

pardon me while I choke on the price of those album covers .... ack ack!!!

wow. No room to mark those up. I know I would NOT sell any more than ONE of those every other year. That is just too danged expensive now days.

that is how I present my covers as well (minus the reviews). I have a template that I'm still messing with, but it looks real nice (to me at least). I set up a couple of 500W lights in my spare room, and do a studio style shoot of the program to get the beest possible picture. I could also scann it in, but some times the pictures work better. For this client, I used her program from and back as the front and back of the DVD case design.

I am having a horrible time getting these printed out acurately though. colors at OfficeDepots print shop were WAAAAY off. It should have been a slight gray green, not brown. But fortunately, both the green and brown were part of the wedding colors.

lots of nice package and idea in this post. I would like to share our simple style DVD package

Wedding DVD Package on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Wedding DVD Package on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Nice
 

Nice work everyone on your dvd packaging. I'll put mine up too... (sorry for the poor quality) but we do a custom design for each bride. I really like Miraj's... very clean!

I am quite interested in the booklet inside the DVD case, what do you put in those booklet?

This could have been a separate thread but sort of on the same topic...

For disc labels, do you print ON the disc itself? Or print on label stickers and stick them on?

Here are my packaging. Nothing special really.

http://www.estrellaproductions.ca/im...aseoutside.jpg
http://www.estrellaproductions.ca/im...caseinside.jpg

As you might tell, I print on label stickers and stick them on :p (for now)

I print on the disks, and I use the "hubless" disks from Verbatim with great success. I haven't used labels since the labels I used on some CDs actually separated it from the polycarbonate and ruined them. I had a whole spindle of them and virtually destroyed all of them.

Now the construction of DVDs is different than CDs and the danger of this happening is much less, but still...

The look of printed disks is much better and I think offers better protection for the top of the disk than labels will. Some folks will apply a light coat of urethane to seal the ink to the surface and reduce the risk of the ink running, although I haven't tried this myself.

stickers will eventually cause problems. For me, I decided that since the disc is likely to never be thrown away, that it should be made to last as long as possible. That is what I choose Lightscribe (though printable discs was a close second option).

The Taiyo Yuden glossy, water resistant, hub printable discs are my choice. I used to use LightScribe but it was just too difficult to get a good image. Everything that came out was too light, and it took as long to write the label as it did the data.

The Taiyo Yuden discs look nice, even coming out of a so-so printer like my HP C5280 All-In-One. They're archival quality, look great, and they don't have that coarse texture that most inkjet printable DVDs have.

... no, I do not work for that company :)

Oh I completely agree that LS is a royal PITA. If there were a competing product I would get it. I'm also very close to getting a disc printing system specificaly for the ability to print color and do it 10x faster that LS.

Is there a technology (besides Light Scribe) that will allow me to burn a graphical image directly to the top surface of a dvd?

I only know of LS and printable top DVDs.

We use white cd cases from Horizon Media and print the covers on standard photo paper. Our DVD's are verbatim hubless, printables. We have never gotten as creative with our covers as some of you all do. . . consider that idea ripped off now.

"System" sounds expensive. Unless you're going to do a zillion of them right now, a printer might be more cost effective. I've had great luck with the Epson RX595. I beat the snot out of it and no problems.

My idea of a "system" would be a laptop with two printers attached to it. (grin)

Can anyone enlighten me as to how LightScribe prints on the CD? I know you flip it on the same drive after burning, then it prints...but after some reading, I can't find any more information than that. Does it use ink of some sort? Is it expensive to refill?

I'm not fully convinced to get one yet...at approx 30 mins a disc to print, and some people here saying the image isn't as they want it to be, I'm not sure if it's worth it :/

Chris... There's no ink. What little I know of the process, the laser interacts with the "printable" surface of the disk and a chemical(?) reaction happens changing the color where the laser hits.

Although there have been some upgrades in the technology lately, the original technology yielded images that looked like dark gold-ish gray on a lighter gold background. For text only, it works OK. For images, it's rubbish. It's nothing but a duotone image. I think the new technology changes the colors available, but it's still duotone so it's still rubbish.

HP were the first to market the technology. You might want to check their Web site for old press releases and/or technology briefs for more detail information. Or, you can go here.

Thanks for that info. Sounds really interesting...

Having those gold discs would make for a decent wedding disc label. And having LS would sure save some change from constant colour ink refills and sticker labels.

But then again I'm hearing several negative reviews against it here, so I'm still torn! (but that's okay, I still have quite a few sticker labels to last me a while)

Yes the images are essentially monochrome. But they (in my opinion) look pretty classy. The resolution is 600dpi, so full photos print out just fine on them.

The LS discs are not cheap, running about ~$0.70 each (if you buy the largest packs you can find). B&H actually has good prices on LS discs. I also only ever buy DVD-R, and LS DVD-R discs are hard to find. No brick stores carry them. Only online.

And like I said, it can take ~40 minutes to burn at the darkest quality setting. And the system doing the burning is pretty well dedicated to doing only that. No because the process takes up too much CPU time, but for some reason it slows down the system. Probably the crappy drivers.

Unless I have clients asking for full color images on the DVD, I'll probably stick with Lightscribe.

Built into my Gateway computer is a Labelflash drive. It's the same thing as LightScribe except blue. See The Official Website of Labelflash™ . I haven't tried using it yet but maybe next year now that I will be making more wedding videos...

Elegance has its price, but it may not be as much as you think!
 

I completely disagree with you Jason.. retail pricing is a bit steep... maybe you didn't realize that the listed price is usually for a dozen (not for one!)?

When you consider the time it takes to design a great DVD case, then cost of ink and paper, I can't imagine that the purchased case is all that much more $$$ (if you value time as $$$). And personally, I think a nice DVD folio is much more elegant than a standard plastic DVD case (and maybe with the front photo it'll stay out where they can find it when they want to see it!)

Just my 3 cents...

Cheers,
:-) Rob

Ok I stand corrected quite obviously. I didnt' notice the little text that said "Price: $12.50ea. - 12/case"

I saw the prices on the right and the picture on the left (which was not a picture of a case of the item) and thought... "holy crap!"

That definitely changes things. So much so that I might just pick up a case for the several productions I am going to delivery this month.

DVD holder ejector built into Photo frame
 

if your looking to present your DVDs in a new modern way have a look at this link something different.

case Wedding Photo Frame and built-in DVD Holder on eBay, also, Photo Frames, Decorative Items, Home Garden (end time 14-Dec-08 19:16:59 GMT)

ebay Item number: 110324114385
Photo frame with built in DVD Ejector

DVD Cases
 

We use these..

Wedding Video and DVD Cases - Exclusively Weddings

They are engraved and the brides love them.

Memory Lane Professional Videography

Those are very nice, how long does it take to get them? Have you ever had any problems with them? How does the picture go on in the front? Also is there any space to put your company info anywhere on the case?

re
 

i either use the black or white leather cases found here

Wedding DVD Cases - Blank DVDs - DVD Jewel Case - VHS Tape Packs - USA

i charge 10 pound for a normal black stardard dvd case, no cover, just a customised dvd made on my dymo disc painter, or 25 pound for one of the leather ones

does that sound fair?????????

DVD Tins
 

We have been using clear plastic DVD cases and creating custom DVD cover artwork for the last 4-5 years.

We have recently added DVD Tins with a clear window (DVD Tins) as a different packaging option.

We use this option with our lowest priced packages. This way no cover artwork is required. All we design is the DVD disk artwork, which are printed on hub printable Watershield DVDs.

But if a couple who books a higher package would like to save some money, I suggest the DVD Tins. Since I am not designing artwork and saving on printing materials, I discount their package by $75. I see ti as a win win situation. I save time by not designing, printing and trimming covers, and the client saves money.

Kale,

They have fast delivery, no problems at all with them. The picture slides in a separate
frame that you attach to the case. We put our company information sticker on the back of the case.

Gina

Thanks Gina, I am going to look into adding these to my packages.