Comments

farss wrote on 3/1/2006, 5:36 PM
You should be able to find local agents for the foreign plants that'll take the hassle out of it. Look for ISO certification. Those very low prices though rely on large volume I think.

Bob.
Coursedesign wrote on 3/1/2006, 6:12 PM
Look for ISO certification.

ISO9001 (for example, there are others) certification is nice, but it doesn't guarantee quality.

This standard covers the documentation of all steps of the manufacturing process, and if half the disks made are unreadable, that's perfectly OK as long as the manufacturer knows how it's done.

I've been to some local industry tradeshows here in L.A. where lots of replicators from Taiwan and elsewhere had tables with samples and booth babes, and indeed most of them had U.S. offices. You probably have something similar in Canada, both the shows and the reps.
RalphM wrote on 3/1/2006, 6:29 PM
To nitpick the ISO issue a little further - ISO does not certify anything. After you jump throught all the hoops you become ISO "registered", not certified. As Coursedesign says, as long as you can document and the process is repeatable, you can gain registration.

ISO will come back and make sure your processes are as you state, but they do not pull widgets off the assembly line and see if they work...
farss wrote on 3/1/2006, 7:20 PM
Yes, you are 101% correct about registration, as I once said to one of the 'inspectors' ,"So if we're making 5 cent toys designed to break in half an hour and they break in half an hour then we pass, but if they last 60 minutes we fail?". "Yes"!.

The only reason I mention ISO registration is the plants that have taken the trouble to jump through the hoops are more likely to be doing something about piracy, i.e. If you 1000 then another 5000 copies are made for.....

I'm told by one of the local agents that this is a big issue with Asian plants, I'm assuming that as part of the ISO registration process their operating procedure manuals would include methodologies to control this problem. Simply knowing that outside bodies may turn up to conduct audits may get them a bit more focussed on getting their house in order.

I think there's other certification / registration processes and industry bodies that provide some degree of oversight to the processes.
BTW Sony themselves have a very large replication facility down here in Sydney, guess that's OS!
tygrus2000 wrote on 3/1/2006, 8:00 PM
is replication just the copying of the DVD or does that include the dvd face artwork, the case, the case artwork, the shrinkwrap, etc etc?